


Missing Yesterday

by LastStopTillLondon



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-18
Updated: 2015-10-13
Packaged: 2018-03-02 00:33:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 14
Words: 39,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2793296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LastStopTillLondon/pseuds/LastStopTillLondon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>LaFontaine has always been clumsy and Perry is always taking care of them. But this time, after LaFontaine's biggest accident yet, Perry can't fix it.<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I watched a movie in my Psychology class and I got really inspired because it was extremely sweet but sad at the same time.  
> 

This was one phone call Perry always thought she would get one day but never dreamed it would actually happen. This was never the way she planned on spending her Saturday before the biggest test in her German class. She should be studying and nagging her ever lazy roommate to hit the books as well. She shouldn't be here. She shouldn't be crying her eyes out. LaFontaine shouldn't be laying down, still and quiet. They should be up and around, cracking jokes to lighten the mood.

The heart monitor beeped in a slow, rhythmic pattern. Once or twice every few hours, it would speed up and Perry would get hopeful LaFontaine would wake up and tell her everything was fine. That they should have been watching where they were going. That the "asshole sped right in front of me" or whatever happened, no one really knew. But sure enough, every time, the heart monitor would return to the slow rhythm once again.

There was nothing Perry could do. This room was as clean as it possibly could be. She knows. She's cleaned it. All she could do was hold on to LaFontaine's soft, limp hand. Perry felt so useless. So vulnerable. Her best friend was hurt and she couldn't kiss it better. She couldn't lecture her to not to climb the tree so high or not to play near a bees nest like she did when they were children. This wasn't that easy of a fix. It couldn't be fixed with a bandage or a bunch of disinfectant. This mess couldn't be cleaned.

\--

Perry took a sip of her tea, never taking her eyes off her textbook. This test was going to determine if over spring break she could go visit Germany, something she's always wanted to do. She's even been teaching LaFontaine a few words so they could come along on the trip.

Perry closed her tired eyes. She'd been studying for quite a few hours. With a sigh and a glance at her phone for any messages from LaFontaine, she got up and went to her movie collection. If she wasn't going to study from the textbook then the least she could do was watch a movie in German.

Grabbing a pillow and a blanket, she sat down on the floor as the tv powered up. She glanced at the clock and smiled softly. LaFontaine would be getting out of class soon. They weren’t good at waking up early in the morning so all their classes were scheduled later in the day. Perry didn’t understand but it was one of those things that she didn’t question.

About half way through the movie, Perry started to get a little worried. She looked at her phone and pierced her lips when she saw no messages from LaFontaine. The mother hen side of her took over and she sent a message first.

**Perr:** _“Hey, where are you?”_

**LaFontaine:** _"oh, sorry. me and laura got caught up talking in the caf”_

**Perr:** _“Should I come down?”_

**LaFontaine:** _“no you have to study. i need to go buy laura some food so she doesn’t die”_

**Perr:** _“Doesn’t she have a roommate?”_

**LaFontaine:** _“yeah but she only eats that “protein supplement” you think it is”_

Perry sighed and rolled her eyes.

**Perr:** _“You need to study too”_

**LaFontaine:** _“yeah yeah i’ll do that later”_

**Perr:** _“Fine but hurry back. You have to study”_

**LaFontaine:** _“alright perr. be back soon”_

‘be back soon’ Perry repeated in her mind. LaFontaine was always so difficult to get to sit down and do work if it wasn’t in class.

Without thinking much of it, Perry finished her movie and turned off the tv. To pass the time, she went out to the floor’s kitchen and started to bake some brownies. While they were cooking, she cleaned up the kitchen. The girls on this floor really don’t know how to clean up their own messes, seriously. By the time the brownies were done, Perry had also finished cleaning most of the surfaces in the kitchen.

“Are those brownies I smell?” Laura popped her head around the corner of the kitchen from the hallway.

“Yes, yes they are. I was baking some to take a break from studying,” Perry smiled kindly and took the brownies out, setting the pan on a cooling rack. Laura licked her lips and reached forward with the spatula to grab a piece. Perry just patiently moved it away. “They’re too hot right now. You’re going to have to wait a bit.”

“Awww” Laura pouted, slumping her shoulders. “I wanted something sweet before working on my lit paper,”

“I could help you,” Perry offered.

“Really?” Laura stood up straight. “You’d do that?”

“Yeah, I’m just about finished studying anyways,”

“Awesome!”

They chatted for a while on what Laura’s paper was about to allow the brownies to cool down enough to cut and put on a plate. Together they walked back to Laura’s room with Laura munching on one of the brownies. Stepping into Laura’s room, Perry’s eyes got wide.

“It’s a mess in here,”

“Yeah… blame my freak roommate,” Laura rolled her eyes and went to her computer.

Perry took a breath in and set down the plate of brownies. She quickly got to work cleaning the messy dorm room and simultaneously helping Laura with her paper.

“Remind me again, why didn’t you ask…” Perry stopped, trying to think of the girl’s name. “That… Um, your TA?”

“Danny? She had a Summer Society meeting. She helped me a little but had to leave before we really got anything done”

Perry’s phone rang from across the room, next to the empty plate of brownies by Laura.

“Who’s calling?” Perry asked, not looking up from making Carmilla’s bed.

“It’s your phone,” Perry stopped. “Uhh… “Susan”?”

“Oh!” Perry rushed over and grabbed the phone, quickly picking it up. “Sus- uh, LaFontaine?”

_“Mister,”_

“Oh, hello Mr. LaFontaine,” Perry said, instantly trying to be more formal. Mr. LaFontaine was a formal kind of guy.

_“Yes, well um…”_ his voice cracked. He wasn’t the kind of person to show much emotion. This must be serious. _“It’s Susan… She’s… She’s in the ER.”_

“Wh-What…” Perry breathed, her heart racing as she was beginning to panic.

_“She was in a car crash… I simply can’t stay as long as they need me to so I told them to transfer all responsibility to you,”_ Mr. LaFontaine was a very rich and powerful man. He’s never around when you need him to be and he’s very stingy.

“I-I’ll be right there. Thank you, Mr. LaFontaine,” Perry said quickly before shutting her phone. Tears welled in her eyes. “LaFontaine was in a car crash. I.. I need to go,”

Laura stood up. “I'll drive,”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm always open for requests/prompts over on my [tumblr](http://the--harbor.tumblr.com)!


	2. Chapter 2

LaFontaine's chest moved up and down so slowly you wondered if they were breathing at all. Their face had several big gashes that were covered in gauze with short ginger hair sticking up all over the place. With a shaky hand, Perry smoothed it down. The stupid blue gown they were dressed in was covered with a brace for their chest and neck. Their left arm and right leg were sporting the same matching casts.

They looked nothing like the ones Perry remembered from their childhood. LaFontaine had broken a few bones when they were young, but they were colorful back then. At the end of the day, the color was slightly different from all the signatures from the kids at school and the story of why they had a cast had changed. LaFontaine was always a story teller. Always wanted to take the adventurous route and make memories. _"How can you tell stories if you don't have proof that they happened?"_ LaFontaine would always say, touching a small scar or a bruise.

This story isn't one that Perry could bare to hear over and over again. She might barely get through it once. At just the thought, the sobs returned. She bowed her head so LaFontaine's hand was touching her forehead.

Even though Perry knew she shouldn't, she blamed herself. She should have gone down to the caf. She should have insisted LaFontaine stayed. She should have... Her body trembled. What if LaFontaine would never wake up?

\--

"Poor Perry..." Laura sighed, looking through LaFontaine's hospital room window.

The small girl crossed her arms over her chest and moved back to the bench. On one side of her sat a somber-looking vampire. Carmilla sat in the edge of the seat, elbows resting on her leather-covered thighs. Her head rested in her hands,looking down at the floor. On the other side sat a very gangly athlete with a few tears that would well but never fall. Danny had her elbow on the benches' armrest and her chin sitting in her palm.

"How's it looking?" Danny asked, not looking at the other two. She didn't want Laura seeing her cry or Carmilla seeing her so vulnerable.

"Not good... I don't think Perry will willing leave the hospital anytime soon," Laura slouched. This was kind of her fault and she was feeling all kinds of guilt.

"She's gonna have to. The German students have that test on Monday," Carmilla stated.

"She could explain the situation and I'm sure-" Laura began.

"It doesn't work that way, cupcake," Carmilla sighed. She seemed sad, like she was remembering something from a long time ago. "The test date is the test date. If you aren't there, you don't take it,"

"This is all my fault," Laura slumped against the back of the bench, her head hitting the wall behind her.

"Hey, no it's not." Danny turned to Laura, placing a large hand on the tiny girl's shoulder. "You couldn't have stopped that crash,"

"But _I'm_ the one who gave her the idea to go buy me things," Laura shook her head like it could go away.

The door opened slowly, almost as if were fragile. The three girl's heads snapped up at the noise to be greeted by a disheveled looking Perry. Her normally lively, caring eyes never rose from the steady gaze at the floor.

She cleared her throat. "I have to go to the restroom," her voice cracked and she wiped away a stray tear. "C-could someone..." Perry drifted off, unable to finish the sentence. She just gestured to the door, looking about to cry again.

"I'll look after LaF..." Danny stood up.

"An-and I'll go with you," Laura stood up, feeling so tiny compared to the tall girl next to her.

Perry pierced her lips together gently and nodded, moving out of the way for Danny to go in. With one last long look back at the room, Perry walked with Laura down the hall. They had been there for at least 3 hours but Perry already looked sleep deprived.

The two walked to the bathroom in silence. Laura waited outside the stalls as Perry did her thing. Once Perry was out and in front of the mirror, she just stared at herself. Laura took a deep breath and grabbed a paper towel and wetted it down. She rubbed off the salt trails on Perry's cheeks.

"I'm sorry," Laura started, throwing away the paper towel.

"Don't be," Perry muttered. Her voice made Laura's heart nearly break.

"This... This is my fault," Laura fixed some of Perry's wild curls. "I'm sorry. If... If I hadn't asked LaF to-"

"Laura!" Perry sternly shouted in a motherly discipline voice before quickly clearing her throat. "Just... Can we not talk about this now?" Perry requested, fixing a lock of her hair as she walked out of the bathrooms.

They walked back together in silence, pausing in front of the door that protectively shielded the healing LaFontaine from the rest of the world. Perry reached for the door but couldn't open it. She didn't think that she could handle seeing LaFontaine like that again. But she was going to have to.

Danny noticed Perry through the window so she came out slowly, not saying anything.

"I think uh," Perry cleared her throat. "I think you guys should go back to Silas."

"But, Perry-" Danny started, cut off by the mother hen herself.

"Go back to Silas. I've got everything under control here," Perry looked up in the other's eyes and tried for her best smile. "I think I can handle myself here over night"

Laura and Danny looked at each other. There was no doubt that Perry was the most mature and fit to take care of herself. However, in a time like this, the girls questioned if it was mentally okay for her to be by herself.

"Are you sure?" Danny asked, turning to Perry. "I mean, I can stay until 11 if you'd like,"

Laura nodded "Yeah! I can stay too,"

"I couldn't ask you to. Especially not you, Laura. You still have that paper to finish," Perry muttered, not trusting her voice to be anything but quiet.

"Wait you still haven't finished that?" Danny looked down at the tiny girl next to her. "After all the help I gave you?"

"Well... I couldn't..." Laura scrambled for an answer. She couldn't say that she had been preoccupied staring at Danny's lips all night. "I.. Just work better when you're around,"

"Yeah, okay. But you need to finish that. I've already given you three days extension,"

"A-Actually..." Perry sniffled. Danny had almost forgotten where they were and the situation they were in. This wasn't the time to talk about homework. "C-could you stay h-here?" Perry wiped away a tear. "Danny, I mean,"

"Yeah, anything,"

\--

Danny jolted awake from her head falling back. She had been sitting for hours and it was almost 11. It was time to go back to Silas but she couldn't just leave Perry.

Speaking of, Perry had cried herself to sleep about three hours ago, after having the doctor come in and explain that LaFontaine was part of a hit-and-run and was even lucky to have a heartbeat right now, with her head on LaFontaine's good arm, grasping onto it for dear life like it was the last bit of her sanity. She still sat on a chair and it didn't look like a very comfortable position. But right now, that didn't really matter. Danny stood up and grabbed a blanket on the spot next to her that the nurse left. She draped it over Perry's shoulders and pet the soft curls a few times.

Danny couldn't just leave but she couldn't just stay either. Sighing, trying to think of an idea, she put her thumbs in the back pockets of her jeans. Wait, she still had her post-it notes from her studying session earlier today. She could easily just leave a note and come back early before her first class. So, that’s what she did.

_“Perry,_

_Sorry that I couldn’t stay longer but it’s 11:30 and you’re asleep._

_I’ll come back tomorrow morning at about 8 with breakfast._

_See you soon_

_-Danny”_

The tall woman didn’t care if the note was crap, she was tired and needed some rest. She stuck it on one side of the hospital bed post. The post-it was florescent blue, it wasn’t hard to miss. With that, Danny sighed and nodded before quietly leaving the room to return to her dorm, forgetting to pick up the remaining stack of post-it notes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm always open for requests/prompts over on my [tumblr](http://the--harbor.tumblr.com)!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original on my [tumblr](http://the--harbor.tumblr.com/post/106188461489/missing-yesterday-part-3)

They woke up slowly to the slow rhythmic beeping of the monitor. For a while, they watched the green line jump up and down along the dark screen. It was slow. Was it suppose to be that slow?

The person in the bed looked so tired. If anything, it looked like they were asleep. Oh, please, please let them be asleep.

\--

As her note had said, Danny returned the next morning at 8 with pancakes and an egg along with a cup of coffee that she had made not too long beforehand. At least when she returned, Perry was up. She didn’t look as exhausted as she did last night but she still looked very stressed.

“Good morning,” Danny smiled, offering the food and coffee. Perry’s gaze lifted from LaFontaine, her eyes not holding that motherly glint as they did only a few days ago.

“Morning,” Perry muttered half heartedly, taking the food. Her voice sounded as if she was still half asleep.

“Sorry I had to leave last night, I ha-”

“Oh, no,” Perry cut her off. “I understand. But thanks for leaving the note and food,” Perry smiled weakly.

“Food?” Danny questioned, raising a brow. “I didn’t…” She just shook her head. It was probably a nurse or something. They were really kind in this hospital. “I can’t stay long today. But I told Laura to come by soon with a change of clothes for you,”

“... Thanks,” Perry faked a smile and Danny barely noticed how her hand gripped LaFontaine’s just a bit harder.

Of course Perry wanted to change clothes and shower and sleep in her own bed but that would mean time is passing. Time is moving and LaFontaine was stuck behind. Stuck. Stuck in a hospital bed, broken. A tear started to blur her vision but she quickly blinked it away. It was too early to cry again.

“Is there anything else you need? Anything we could get you?” Danny offered, putting a comforting hand on Perry’s shoulder.

She stopped herself from shrugging it off. “No,” she sniffled. “You guys are amazing, but I don’t need anything else,”

“Did… Did the doctor say anything new?” Danny tried to keep up conversation. She knew how silence only seemed to make the sting of loneliness worse.

Perry just shook her head. “No… Just… That she’s doing well… for being in a coma,” she sighed. Her normally lively eyes were so dull and helpless now. It nearly broke Danny’s heart to look at them directly. “The doctor said they were gonna do some tests today to see what kind of coma Su-... LaFontaine is in,”

“What kind?” Danny asked, her head tilting slightly. She was an athlete, not a doctor.

“There’s two kinds. One’s more temporary and the other’s much more… Permanent…” her voice grew softer and more emotionless, slowly moving her gaze to LaFontaine’s blank face. How she hoped and prayed LaFontaine would wake up soon.

Danny sighed, looking at the wall. Perry wasn’t handling this well. But then again, who would? She didn’t know how to help. She didn’t know what to do.

“Do you want me to ask Laura to bring your German stuff? Don’t you have that test tomorrow?” Danny changed the subject, seeing that Perry was going to cry again.

Perry sighed, running a hand through her unkempt curls. “Yeah. Sure,” Danny could feel her pulling away.

_Please don’t shut us out_ “Okay. Well… I have to leave now. Make sure you eat your breakfast, it’s important,”

“Thanks,” Perry half-heartedly smiled, looking up at Danny. “Wait, it’s Sunday. How do you have class?”

“It’s a Summer Society class. For the new members,”

“Oh,”

Danny shifted her weight to the other side, hating the faltering conversation. “Well, I gotta get going. Don’t wanna keep the freshmen waiting,”

“Good luck,” Perry said.

Danny didn’t know if that was directed at her or Perry.

\--

Laura quickly opened the door, late as usual.

“I’m sooooo sorry. I would have been here earlier but after I grabbed your books, the Zeta’s got in this fight with the Summer Society girls, blocking my way to the bus stop. I don’t even know what they were fighting over but there was _no way_ anybody was gonna get through that until it cleared. I was already late and I missed the stop to pick up some food,” she explained, closing the door and walking over to the chair beside Perry.

“That’s nice,” Perry absentmindedly replied without much emotion. Laura would have continued on her tale of misfortune but she was completely thrown off guard by the remark. Her heart died a little at hearing the half-there-half-not tone of her voice.

Perry was twirling a flower between her fingers. Laura only just now noticed the overly-large bouquet of flowers on the table.

“Who brought the flowers?”

“LaFontaine’s dad… He’s in meetings all day so he sent his assistant over with flowers,” Perry spoke slowly, her voice heavy with despair.

Laura was beginning to think LaFontaine’s dad was a real prick. “They’re beautiful,” she shrugged, trying to continue the conversation. Perry had been in here, probably not talking to anybody, for too long. She needed to socialize.

“... Yeah… They are…” Perry muttered.

Laura nodded, shifting a bit at the silence.

“Oh, I brought your German stuff. You have a test, right?”

“Tomorrow…”

“Would you like help studying?”

“Sure…”

“How can I help? Flashcards? Random questions? Is there a ‘quiz yourself’ section? I could do that,”

“Sure…”

Perry was pulling away. Laura sighed. Might as well start with flash cards. They were simple to make and easy to answer. She could keep Perry engaged with them.

She pulled out Perry’s textbook and pulled over the portable table, sitting down and placing the overly-heavy book on it. Perry put the flower down next to LaFontaine and turned to the book. She opened it carefully, like it would self destruct if mishandled. Laura just pulled out a stack of flashcards and a pen from her bag.

“Let’s get started!” She tried to stay upbeat for Perry.

They studied for hours. Most of it was Perry trying to read the book to Laura since most of it was in German. Many flash cards were made, then scattered out over their laps, on the book, and a few even landed on the bed. By the end of it, Laura’s head hurt. She held her head in her hands, hunching over and closing her eyes. Within a few hours, it felt as if she had just learned an entire new language.

Danny came in at 7 with some dinner for the three of them.

“I brought food,” she called with a smile into the room. The smile fell as soon as she Laura. “What happened?”

“German. So. Much. German. Ich habe Kopfweh,” Laura groaned with terrible pronunciation. Perry muttered the correct pronunciation under her breath, looking to have as much interest in the conversation as she did a few hours earlier.

Danny raised an eyebrow at the German words but shook it off. She walked over and pulled a chair next to the two girls. She started to unload the fast food bag, dividing the food evenly between the three. Normally, Danny and Perry would be very against eating fast food but sometimes, you just need it. Or at least, that was Laura’s argument.

“So how was the studying?” Danny asked, beginning to eat.

“I think it went well,” Laura shrugged before looking at Perry. “Perry’s got pretty much everything down pat. You’re gonna ace that test tomorrow!” Laura tried to be encouraging.

“Yeah…” Perry mumbled, taking miniscule bites of her food.

She wasn’t paying much attention to the the conversation, her mind wondering. She thought about if LaFontaine was awake right now. They’d probably be all over Perry’s food, stealing it when they thought she wasn’t looking (when in truth, she wouldn’t eat certain parts so LaFontaine could snatch them). Then pouting when Perry stole food from them. Perry had to smile a little bit at the thought.

“-and I swear, some of them couldn’t run farther than they could throw a rock!” Danny complained about her Summer Society class.

Laura had to laugh at the expression, holding up a hand to shield any food that might escape. The two chatted while they all ate. Even though Perry didn’t join in the conversation, she was happy to hear her friends being so lively. It really brought the mood up in the room. She needed this.

For a second, things were great. The room’s mood was something other than depressed. She nearly forgot where they were for a second. But then, reality hit again. It suddenly felt like there was something missing. Perry’s mood dropped again. LaFontaine should be awake and laughing with them. Telling stupid jokes that Perry would even have to laugh at. Lafontaine should be up and half-hitting on whichever freshman Danny was describing from her Summer Society meeting just to get a reaction out of Perry. She slumped her shoulders. It just felt out of place without her best friend.

After about an hour and a half of joking and gossiping, they all finished eating.

“Thanks for bringing the food,” Perry did her best to smile and Danny was happy that she was becoming more engaged.

“Hey, no problem,” Danny smiled, throwing the garbage away.

“And thanks for helping me study, Laura,” Perry looked over at the smaller girl.

“Anytime!”

“Speaking of studying, don’t you have a test you should be studying for, Laura?” Danny raised an eyebrow.

“Oh, yeah..” Laura awkwardly laughed, trying to brush it off like it was nothing. “The test is on Wednesday. I can just study tomorrow,”

“No, you should be studying,” Danny crossed her arms, trying to keep her voice friendly rather than accusatory.

“I know,” Laura slumped in her chair. She really didn’t want to study but she couldn’t say no to Danny because she’s… well… Danny.

“Did you bring your stuff with?” Danny asked, nodding to Laura’s bag.

“Yeah…” Laura sighed.

“Then let’s get started,” Danny grabbed the bag that just seemed to match Laura’s personality perfectly.

They went into another study session. Perry helped occasionally. Normally it was just helping with flash cards or holding the book but it made a difference to her. She liked feeling included in their tiny study session. Perry was even enjoying herself until she thought of LaFontaine. They’d be all over the flashcards going over them again and again until they might as well have been engraved in everyone’s brain. They’d look at the book and try to talk through things so they’d understand, even though they didn’t really need to learn the material, as if this study session was for them. Perry thought of LaFontaine too often. She knew she did. She knew she shouldn’t. But they had barely spent so long apart ever since they were 5.

“-and I can’t anymore…” Laura groaned, laying her head in her hands. “I’m all studied out,”

“Please, it’s barely been 30 minutes,” Danny said, amusingly.

“I know, I know but I helped Perry for hours. I’m pretty sure I could pass her test,”

“Well…” Danny lowered a set of flashcards to her lap. “I guess you have a bit of time before your test,” Laura could be really persuading sometimes. Or maybe Danny was just too love sick.

“Yes! I could use a nap,” Laura leaned on Danny’s shoulder. Both of their hearts thumped loudly in their chests, they wondered if the other could hear it.

“I think we all could,” Danny looked over at Perry. “Should we go back to Silas?”

Laura checked her watch. “Yeah, it’s almost lights out,”

Perry looked at LaFontaine, squeezing their hand again. She couldn’t even think of leaving LaFontaine tonight. She couldn’t even think of attending classes tomorrow without LaFontaine. She didn’t think she could sleep in her bed without LaFontaine saying goodnight or sleeping next to her.

“Perry?” Danny called softly. Perry wasn’t answering anything that they had been saying for the past few minutes, not even looking up from LaFontaine.

“Yeah… We should… Get.. back to Silas…” Perry lowered her head to hide her tears from the other two. Time was moving. Days were passing. And LaFontaine was still in a coma.

“Oh my gosh! Did you see that?!” Laura pointed at LaFontaine’s foot.

It had twitched a few times like someone had been poking at it.

“Yeah!” Danny was just as amazed.

While the other two were freaking out, tears threatened to fall from Perry’s eyes. She was still amazed that she was able to cry after crying as much as she had.

“What does it mean? Is she waking up?” Laura questioned, grabbing LaFontaine’s ankle.

Perry just shook her head.

“No. Comatose patients can twitch. Often,” her voice was heavy with sadness.

She had thought the same things when it had happened the first time. She had gotten so hopeful that LaFontaine was waking up but only to be shot down by a nurse.

“Oh. Sorry, Perry,” Laura apologized.

“No. The doctor says that it’s a sign that LaFontaine’s brain is still working,”

“Well, we know she’s not paralyzed,” Danny tried to be positive.

“Yeah…” Perry sniffled, wiping away a tear. “Could you… Give me a minute? I’ll uh… I’ll be right out,”

“Yeah, sure,” Danny nodded.

They left the room and after the door shut, Perry squeezed LaFontaine’s hand again.

“I miss you,” Perry started, feeling more tears. “I want to help… The nurse lets me clean the cuts on your face…” She reached up and caressed their cheek. “But… I wish I could help,” a tear lazily rolled down her cheek. “I have to go back to Silas. I wish I could stay…” Perry paused to shakingly sigh, trying not to sob. “I’ll be back tomorrow right after my last class…” Perry paused. She tried to keep down a few sobs. “I promise,”

She didn't trust her voice anymore. She couldn't keep talking. _“Lola Perry, are you crying?”_ She could just hear what LaFontaine would say. _“Over little ol’ me?”_ Perry couldn’t help but laugh a little at that. Rising to her feet, LaFontaine looked even more broken.

She bent down and hesitated for a second before kissing LaFontaine’s cheek. This little act caused the butterflies in her stomach to act up. Perry stood up and cleared her throat, trying to calm herself down. But, if she was ever to confess, or even practice, this would be the most opportune time.

She opened her mouth, taking a preparatory breath. She chickened out.

“I’ll be back,”

\--

Silas was it’s normal creepy. But all the creeps and bumps in the night were making it really difficult to sleep. Had it always been this way? If LaFontaine were here… They could just hug Perry, hold her hand, or even just be in the same room as her and that would be enough to make all the fright and worry go away. With LaFontaine by her side, she could face anything.

But LaFontaine wasn’t here. They weren't here to make it all better. They couldn't just let Perry scoot closer to them at a mysterious and unexplainable creek. Or wrap their arm around her body when something was getting to her. All the troubles would just melt away with LaFontaine. But now, Perry would have to face them head on and alone.

At first, Perry could handle it. Even though their almost home-like room was one of the most comforting places, it seemed unbelievably empty without a certain short-haired ginger. Nothing seemed right. The room seemed suffocating but she was positive it had never felt more empty.

She went through her entire night routine before she realized she needed LaFontaine. Perry laid down in bed, pulling the covers over herself. The bed was too big. Too empty. She closed her eyes, trying to ignore it, and let out a breath. It was bedtime. Or at least, it was until one of the floorboards creaked and a strange scuttle sounded outside the door. Perry couldn’t handle it without LaFontaine.

Perry quickly got up and shuffled through the darkened room over to LaFontaine’s clothes in the dresser. She grabbed LaFontaine’s favorite hoodie before shuffling back to bed. Even though she didn't like to think about clutching a piece of fabric so desperately like she was, it was the best thing she could think of. It smelled like LaFontaine. She put the hood up to her nose and with a few deep breaths, she was off to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm always open for requests/prompts over on my [tumblr](http://the--harbor.tumblr.com)!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original on my [tumblr](http://the--harbor.tumblr.com/post/106263440149/missing-yesterday-part-4)

_Beep Beep…. Beep Beep…_

_Beep.. Beep Beep…_

The green line on the monitor jumped and faltered. The doctors said something about it. What did they say again? No memory arose. But whatever it was, it couldn’t be good.

_Beep… …. Beep_

Their heart started to mimic the beeps of the monitor. Why were they so in tune with the machine?

_Beep.. Beep.._

_\--_

_Beep. Beep. Beep._

Perry groaned and pulled the blankets over her face. The sun was too bright, the blankets were too warm and smelled perfect. They smelled like LaFontaine. Perry drifted off again.

 

_Beep. Beep. Beep._

Perry rolled over and her back hit something soft and warm. Unconsciously, she scooted closer to it, then rolling over and buried her head in it. It smelled like LaFontaine too. For a second, she forgot that LaFontaine was gone. For a second, she forgot that she wasn’t alone. But that second ended all too quickly. She had gripped onto the fabric, wanting to pull it closer, the body that was wearing it closer.

 

_Beep. Beep. Beep._

Perry reached and shut off the alarm. She opened her eyes slowly and frowned slightly. Perry forced her body to sit up, her muscles protesting with laziness. LaFontaine’s hoodie was laying there in a bunch and Perry touched it gently. She was almost positive that someone had been wearing that not even a second ago. With a sigh, she realized that she had been dreaming.

_Please wake up soon._

She forced herself out of bed and did her morning routine with heavy feet. Not wanting to use the shower in her room, she used the one that everyone shared on the floor. Everyone seemed to whisper when she came around in the kitchen for a drink, giving her weird looks. Perry didn’t notice, though. She was missing LaFontaine too much.

Perry only returned to her room to get her things. She didn’t have her first class for a few hours and she didn’t want to idle in the room that just reminded her of what wasn’t there.

Within 5 minutes of Perry walking into Laura’s room, Danny showed up. Neither of the two didn’t know how she got from place to place so quickly, but they didn’t question it. It was nice to have another friend around.

Perry just sat on Laura’s bed. She was being talked at, she knew it. But she couldn’t focus on what they were saying.

“Did you already eat breakfast?” Laura asked, rubbing Perry’s back slowly.

“Sure…” said Perry, absentmindedly. Her voice was so quiet, it was barely there.

“Do you want something to eat?” Danny asked, sitting on a chair in front of the two on the bed.

“Okay…”

“What do you want? I could quick make something before you have to leave,” Danny offered.

“Or I could take you to the caf,” Laura chimed in. She didn’t like the caf, unless it was pie night, but she’d go if it meant Perry was eating.

“Yeah…”

“”Yeah”, what?” Danny tilted her head slightly.

“Okay…”

The two sighed and looked at each other. It was difficult seeing their normally motherly friend so depressed. Danny’s heart couldn’t take much more of seeing her like this.

“Lemme try something,” Laura nodded at Danny before looking at Perry. “You know, there’s a full layer of gunk all over my bathroom,”

“Sure…” Perry wasn’t paying attention. Even if she was, her drive to clean, her drive to organize, to cook, to keep everything normal… It was just gone.

“Here, I wanna try something,” Danny shifted and cleared her throat. She was unsure if she should actually do this, but it was to help Perry feel better. That’s what mattered right now. “I could take you to see LaFontaine,”

“What?” Perry’s gaze snapped up to the tall ginger.

“I asked if you wanted breakfast,” A small smile pulled at Danny’s lips, triumphant that she could get Perry out of her mind funk. But the pride only lasted a short while. Her smile dropped, remembering the severity of the situation. She shouldn’t have said it, but the athlete swore by breakfast as if it were a religion.

“Oh… Well… I guess,” Perry shrugged. “Let’s go to the caf. I don’t want either of you to go to the trouble of making food for me,”

“But it’s no problem, I mean w-” Laura was cut off by Danny clearing her throat.

“Sure, Perry. Anything you need,”

With that, the two walked Perry out of the dorm and into the caf, which was luckily so close to their dorm. They all got something to eat and sat down at a table away from anyone else.

Even though they sat by a window and it was really nice outside, the mood was low. Danny and Laura struck up a conversation to try and lighten the mood, always trying to shoot a question or comment towards Perry whenever possible. Perry just listened and nibbled on her food.

Nothing was the same without LaFontaine around. Even the food tasted different. But she ate it. Otherwise the athlete across from her would give her that 25 minute lecture(fit with graphs, demonstrations, a powerpoint, and even a song) on why eating breakfast is so important. It nearly rivaled her lecture on which sports were superior. That lecture would lead to a contest, then a tournament, and then a raid of the Zeta’s dorm. Everyone agreed that it was best to just go with what Danny says.

“So when does your class start again, Perry?” Perry wasn’t paying enough attention to figure out who actually said that but it pulled her out of whatever she was thinking.

“Uhh… Time…” Perry looked at the clock across the room. It’s surprising that it only takes a weekend to make you forget when your classes were. “Uhh… 9, I think,”

“Okay. We should get going soon,” Danny nodded.

“Alright…”

“Think you’re ready for that test?” Laura asked.

Perry had actually forgotten about it. But there was nothing more she could do before the test. “Probably not,” Perry shook her head. This would be the first test she’d probably not get a decent score on.

“Oh, please. You’re one of the only German students that’s got such a high grade. Even if you completely bomb the test, there’s no way you’re not gonna pass,”

Perry smiled slightly. “Thanks, Danny,” She looked back on the window and sighed. “It’s not that I’m afraid of not passing… It’s just… This test determines whether or not I can go to Germany over spring break. I was planning on taking LaF with me but…” She sighed, stopping herself before it would get too emotional.

An uncomfortable silence swept over the trio. Laura broke it a few seconds later.

“You’ll do great! When I was helping you study, I think you taught me German,”

Perry had to crack a smile at that, shaking her head a little. A few still wet curls brushed her cheeks.

“Thanks or sitting with me. I should be getting to class now,” she stood up, grabbing a hold of her tray of empty dishes. “Oh, you should get to class too, Laura. You’ll be late if you don’t hurry,” Perry simply stated to rile Danny up, then left.

“What?” Danny turned to Laura.

“What?” Laura tried to brush it off, looking at the imaginary watch on her wrist. “Oh, yeah. Would you look at that? I should be off to class,” she got up quickly and sped walked out of the caf, leaving Danny sitting alone at a table shaking her head.

\--

The last two people exited the room. The two were Zeta’s and they had been talking really loudly, filling up the large lecture room with their voices, about the next part and what music they’d play. As soon as they left, the room fell quiet. And empty. Perry couldn’t handle the silence, nor the emptiness, so she started putting her things away.

Slow hands placed notebooks and books into a bag. A sigh, and the bag shut. Perry slung the bag over her shoulders and was just about to leave when she saw she almost forgot a textbook. She slid it up into her arms and hugged it to her chest.

Perry had thought that throwing herself into her studies would help keep her mind off LaFontaine. And it did. She spent all the time between her classes sitting in common places where the Zeta’s would hang out. They were loud. She could let the noise blur as her mind worked, until it got quiet and she took one breath to think. One breath was enough to let all the worries and anxieties slip back into her being. She couldn’t handle the emptiness of being alone. The campus seemed so much smaller, so much more empty without LaFontaine. After spending almost all of her life next to someone, being alone… was her worst nightmare.

Her feet were heavy, as was her chest, moving her body slowly out of the room.

“Took you long enough,” said a voice from behind once she stepped outside the lecture hall.

Perry turned around quickly, getting startled. “Oh, Danny,”

“Hey,” Danny stood up straight. She had been leaning against the wall outside the door. “You know, you’re hard to track down,”

“Oh… Sorry…” Perry looked at the ground. “I didn’t think you’d be looking for me,”

“I had to check on you,” Danny took only a few steps with her long legs to be next to Perry.

“Well… thanks,” Perry gave her a smile.

“How’re you doing?” Danny asked, throwing an arm lazily around Perry’s shoulder. “How was the text?”

“I’m okay… The test went better than I thought,” The two started walking slowly across the campus. Neither really knew where they were going but neither really questioned it. “Um… What are you… doing with your arm?” Perry finally asked. She didn’t have a problem with it but it was kind of odd for their kind of relationship.

“Oh, sorry,” Danny took her arm off Perry’s shoulders. “I think I pulled something in my shoulder this morning during the practice and your shoulders are the perfect height to rest,”

“Oh… I could help you…” Perry said softly, reaching over and putting Danny’s arm back around her shoulders.

Danny smiled, happy to see that Perry wasn’t completely gone.

\--

Danny knocked a few times softly on Laura’s open door, Perry following right behind her. “Hey,” she said, taking a few steps in. Her feet stopped when she noticed Carmilla, a frown growing over her face.

“Hey, Danny,” Laura looked up. She did a double take, her eyes widened as her mouth opened to gasp. “What happened to your arm?”

Danny chuckled, a little nervously, touching the sling Perry put on her arm. “I think I threw out my shoulder at morning practice today. Perry helped with the sling,”

“You should be more careful!” Laura scolded, but it didn’t really sound like scolding. She touched the sling gently, as if it would hurt Danny if she pressed too hard.

Carmilla rolled her eyes and packed her things. She opened her mouth to say something sarcastic before leaving but she saw Perry standing behind Danny. Something inside her told her not to say anything so she just walked out, quietly making a noise of disgust as she passed Danny.

“What’s up with freak show today?”

“I think it’s because I’ve been keeping her up studying,” Laura rolled her eyes with a smile.

“Ooohhh, is she sleepy?” Danny spoke with fake baby-talk and a pouted lip.

“Oh, don’t be mean,” Laura gently slapped Danny’s good shoulder. “She’s not that bad once you get to know her,”

“Oh, I’m sure,” Danny rolled her eyes.

“So, what are you doing here?”

“I was gonna take Perry to go see LaF,”

“Oh,” Laura straightened a little, not noticing that Perry was even there. She leaned to look behind Danny. “Hey Perry,”

“Hi,” Perry smiled and waved a little.

“So wanna come with?” Danny offered.

“I wish I could but… I got that test to study for,” Laura slumped her shoulders.

“Sorry. I can’t help you there,” Danny put a hand on Laura’s shoulder. It rested there a bit too long and she withdrew it quickly.

“Yeah, but have fun, though!” She nodded to Danny then Perry.

\--

The two redheads sat next to each other, facing forward, on the bus in silence. They would have drove but Perry wouldn’t step foot in a car and Danny didn’t have one. Danny was tempted to put in some music since the hospital was a good while away with the bus schedule. She was just about to reach into her pocket for her headphones when Perry spoke.

"You should talk to Laura…” Perry spoke quietly, almost too quiet to hear over the hum of the bus.

“I do talk to Laura…” Danny chuckled a little. “All the time, actually,”

“No, I meant… _talk_ to her,” Perry glanced over at Danny.

“About?” Perry just looked at her with a _“really?”_ expression. “Oh… _That,_ ” Danny ran her hand through her hair, feeling a little nervous all of a sudden. She only talks about this with her roommate.

“You should,” Perry nudged Danny lightly.

Danny could see the hurt in Perry’s eyes, but there was sincerity in her voice. What the hell was she suppose to respond with?

“Uh…”

“What was that thing that Laura said that one time?” Perry looked away, thinking. “Oh, yeah. You need to girl the hell up,”

Danny was almost appalled. Laura had said that once, quite a while ago, when they first met. She had been helping a few girls from the Summer Society with tennis, which she had never played before. In short, she was getting pretty angry. Really though, what kind of game is tennis, anyway? When she was just about to blow her top and give up, Danny noticed a short brunette and two slightly taller redheads (who she originally mistook as siblings) were watching her from the other side of the fence. _“You need to girl the hell up and get back in there!”_ she could still hear Laura’s voice as clear as day. She was the cutest girl she’d ever seen and she was sporting one of the most adorable determined faces in the history of ever.

Danny smiled at the memory then looked at Perry. “Yeah. I do need to girl the hell up,” She smiled. “But not now. Another time, maybe,”

“Okay, sweetie,” Perry put a hand on Danny’s knee. “Just come talk to me if you need any help,”

“Hey, why are you the one that everyone goes to when they’re having girl troubles? Or boy troubles?”

“Well…” Perry looked forward again, a sadness creeping over her demeanor. “I’ve.. gone through it a lot of times…”

Danny’s eyes widened and she raised an eyebrow. “You. Went through that. _A lot of times?_ ”

“Yeah,” Perry almost laughed at Danny’s reaction.

“How?”

“Well… I’ve… I’ve liked someone for a long time…” The sadness started to weigh down her voice. “And… in my mind, I’ve gone through almost every possible scenario. And when people come to me, I put myself in their position. Or really, their position in my situation and how I would handle it,”

“Wow… Why don’t you talk with them?”

Perry sighed and pulled her hand away from Danny’s leg. Her gaze fell to her hands. She felt extremely small at that moment. “I don’t know… I was going to… but.. it’s a little too late now…”

“Oh…” Danny realized who it was that she was talking about. “If they pull through… Will you tell them?”

“In a heartbeat…” Perry nearly whispered. “I don’t like being so close… but being so far away at the same time…”

This time, Danny put her hand on Perry’s knee. They shared a smile and they stayed sitting there contently in silence for the rest of the trip.

Getting into the hospital and up to LaFontaine’s room was easier than Perry had thought. Opening the door, that was another story. Perry stood in front of the door, a bit of anxiety filling her chest. Danny was right behind her, not pushing her to do anything. With a deep breath, Perry placed her hand on the doorknob. It took her a bit, but she finally opened the door.

It opened slowly, the heart rate monitor hitting her ears. LaFontaine slowly came into view and Perry slipped into the familiar room. A new bunch of flowers rested on the table beside LaFontaine’s bed. Curious, Perry walked over to them. There wasn’t a card in the bouquet but there was a get well card between the two vases. She took it carefully in her hands and read it.

The outside had colorful letters that just spelled “Get well soon” and on the inside it just had the printed words that came with the card. Underneath it was Mr. LaFontaine’s signature. Well, not really.

Being friends with LaFontaine for so long meant that she’s seen all the signatures for field trips and permission slips for school. It only happened once, but a very sloppy signature was on their sheet. _“Did you try to forge your dad’s signature? That’s against the rules!”_ Perry had asked but LaFontaine just shook their head. _“That’s my dad’s signature. He normally just lets his assistants sign everything because his is so messy,”_

Perry smiled softly at the memory but then frowned. Mr. LaFontaine was acting even worse than when they were kids. It’s one thing to have your assistant sign a contract or even a damn permission slip but it’s another to not even sign a freaking get well card. _Especially_ when your kid could potentially never wake up.

Danny noticed the angry vibe from Perry so she put a hand on the smaller redhead’s shoulder. “Hey… What’s wrong?”

Perry just sighed and put the card down forcefully. “Nothing. It’s nothing,”

Right then, a nurse came in with a couple bags. He looked up and smiled at the two.

“Hey there. I’m here to give Susan her food supplement,”

 _LaFontaine_ Perry mentally corrected the nurse.

“Okay. We’ll stay out of your way,” Danny nodded and moved to the other side of the bed. Perry followed and watched him carefully.

The nurse smiled at them before grabbing the tube attached to the bag as he walked to the bed. He put the tube into a place in LaFontaine’s upper chest. Perry didn’t watch but she knew it was the only way to keep LaFontaine alive.

She looked back up a few seconds later when he was hanging the bag up.

“Hey, do you know who left those flowers?” Perry asked.

The nurse looked over at the flowers. “Um, I think that one is from Susan’s dad-” _LaFontaine_ “-and the other is from a black haired girl that came in earlier,”

“Black haired girl?” Perry furrowed her brows.

“Yeah, she was wearing black clothing and sat for a bit next to Susan,” _LaFontaine. It’s LaFontaine._ “She looked really sad… I’m sure you know her. She left you food Saturday night,”

The two redheads looked at each other with wide eyes. There was only one black haired girl that wore black clothing and knew LaFontaine well enough to sit down next to them. “Carmilla?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm always open for requests/prompts over on my [tumblr](http://the--harbor.tumblr.com)!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original on my [tumblr](http://the--harbor.tumblr.com/post/106450447879/missing-yesterday-part-5)

She still couldn’t believe it. Carmilla had left flowers? She had left food? She had looked genuinely concerned for Perry. Could she actually be compassionate? The questions buzzed around in her head.

Perry had spent the day, when she wasn’t in class, running around campus looking for Carmilla. Danny, on the other hand, spent the day running after Perry. Even though she had been track captain in highschool, she was very surprised at how fast Perry could move.

“Perry,” Danny breathed heavily once they got into the philosophy department for the second time today, bending over trying to catch her breath. “Could-could we stop? Just for a second?”

Perry turned around to look at the panting athlete. “You don’t have to follow, you know,”

“Yeah… Yeah, I know but-”

“Why don’t you rest?” Perry placed a caring hand on Danny’s shoulder.

“Yeah, okay,” She breathed deeply, trying to slow her breathing down.

Danny walked over to a bench against the wall under a painting and sat down. By the time she looked back up, Perry was already on the other side of the floor and going up the stairs. Danny just shook her head. Perry had this.

Perry was on a mission. She had even opened the door to several on-going lectures. Nothing was going to stop her.

Finally, she opened a door and found Carmilla with one of her “study buddies”, as Laura liked to call them, in an empty classroom. Even though they had papers and a few textbooks spread out on the desks, it looked like they were doing anything but studying.

“Carmilla,” Perry said, trying to hide her nervousness.

The two girls looked up at the sudden voice. The girl that Perry had never seen before’s face grew angry.

“We can’t go _anywhere_ without someone interrupting,” she quickly gathered her things and stormed out, looking pretty annoyed.

“Really? What now?” Carmilla rolled her eyes and leaned back against a desk, crossing her arms.

Perry took a deep breath in. She had spent so long chasing Carmilla but had never thought of exactly why or what she wanted to say.

“Umm…”

“Seriously? If you’re going to interrupt my free time, then at least know what you’re going to say,” Carmilla turned around and started to pack her things.

“I wanted to know… Why did you leave those flowers?”

Carmilla stopped, tensing her shoulders at the sudden question. Her head turned to the side to say something sarcastic but something told her this wasn’t the time. With a sigh, her shoulders slumped and her head bowed.

“You… found out, huh?”

“Yeah…”

“Look,” Carmilla turned around. “This doesn’t mean we’re chummy now, okay? It’s just…” She paused, her gaze falling. “I’ve had someone in the hospital like LaF is. But… she didn’t make it,” her voice was heavy.

“Oh… Sorry…”

“So, I dunno, I guess I thought you’d like them? Or whatever,” Carmilla shrugged, trying to hide her feelings. She crossed her arms.

“And the same with the food?”

“Well, LaF needs you. We can’t have you passing out because you aren’t eating. Then ⅔ of the ginger squad would be out of commission,”

Perry cracked a smile. She quickly crossed the room and hugged Carmilla. It was nice to see that her tough attitude wasn’t the same all the way through. Carmilla tensed up at the sudden affection from the redhead.

“Okay, okay, I care. Let’s not turn this into a sap fest, okay?”

“Sure,” Perry let go and took a step back. “Thanks…”

“Nothing of it,” Carmilla turned and finished packing her things. “Oh, don’t tell jolly red giant about this, ‘kay?”

Perry laughed a little. “Yeah, sure,”

The rest of the day went by okay until it was time to see LaFontaine. Danny and Laura accompanied Perry today but they could only stay for a few hours. Laura had that test to study for and Danny wanted to help. Perry gave Danny a little pep talk with her eyes before they left to encourage her to talk to Laura. Hoping for the best, they left and Perry was alone.

She could only take a minute in the quiet. Trying to get rid of the emptiness, Perry pulled out her phone and played some music. All music that her and LaFontaine would dance around to in their room but would never tell anyone about. Tears started to brim Perry’s eyes at all the memories that came flooding back from middle and high school.

She had lost track of time but the next thing she knew, Carmilla was in the room. Which was a bit weird since Perry would have heard the door open but she didn’t think about it too much. Perry quickly turned off the music and they talked for a bit. Carmilla had brought food again and she let Perry eat, only occasionally stealing a bite or two.

Sadly, it came time to leave and return to Silas. There was a strict rule of how late students could stay out late at night if they were accompanied by 10 people or less. Carmilla rode the bus with Perry and even offered up her bed for the redhead to sleep on because she knew, all too well, how much being around things that remind you of a loved one can hurt. With a bit of arguing, Perry agreed and took the bed.

The rest of the week crept by, as if the hours had somehow become months. Classes were difficult to concentrate in and Perry was constantly crying. Every night she had nightmares that were starting to take a toll on both her and Laura. So much so, that Perry stopped sleeping at night. She would, instead, take small naps in between classes until she started to dream. The sleep deprivation was starting to show on her face. Even her make up couldn’t help hide it.

Everyday was the same, Danny and Laura brought Perry to the hospital, Carmilla eventually showed up, they rode the bus back to Silas a few minutes before curfew, then stealing Carmilla’s bed because being in her dorm room hurt. Even though she avoided sleep, she would still lay in Carmilla’s bed for even the slightest hint of normality. It was the one thing that felt normal. Sometimes she would drift off to sleep, the nightmares waking both her and Laura which sent Carmilla scrambling to help.

Now, it was Friday and Perry was getting used to the routine. She hated that. Days were passing and she was getting used to life without LaFontaine being around to talk to when she needed it.

Perry was slipping deeper into depression. Now, when she got up from Carmilla’s bed each morning, she didn’t even fix the messy sheets. She stopped baking things. She had even begun to not study. But most concerning to everyone, she had started to pull away from conversation.

It had gotten even worse today when all four came to the hospital at the same time. Perry was glad that it was Friday and that she could sleep in the same room as LaFontaine again. The doctor was there in the room when they walked in, checking to make sure everything was in order.

“Ah, you’re here. The nurses said you came around this time every day,” the doctor said, scribbling the last few things onto the clipboard in his hands.

“We’ll be out in the hallway,” Danny said, squeezing the smaller redhead’s arm a little before turning and ushering the other two out the door to give the doctor some privacy with Perry.

“Well, I had to talk to you about Susan,” The doctor’s tone fell but Perry was busy mentally correcting him to notice at first. “Since she’s in a coma… and everything’s stable,” he paused to take a breath. “It’s possible for her to be in the other type of coma. The one that lasts for a longer amount of time,”

“So she’s… Not going to wake up?” Perry’s voice wavered, trying to keep her composure.

“Well, that is a possibility.. But it’s not common,”

“So… How long do you think she’ll stay in her coma?” Perry sniffled, trying her best to not let tears escape from her eyes.

“Well, it’s been almost a week and if there are no changes… It could be anywhere from a few weeks to months… to… years,”

“Years…” Perry echoed the doctor softly as her gaze fell to the tiled floor.

“We aren’t going to focus on that. It’s not very likely. It’s more likely that she’ll be out of that coma before the end of the month,”

Perry just nodded, not trusting her voice anymore. The doctor gave his condolences then left the room. Perry just moved to a chair and sat down. She put her head in her hands, tears silently falling onto her jeans. The other three came in and instantly surrounded her with comfort and hugs. Well, not so much with Carmilla but she did her best. Somehow, through all the sobbing she told them the news.

The whole mood fell but the girls tried to keep up some conversation. When that started to fail, they played some music softly. It helped. Not much, but it didn’t let the room sit in silence.

Perry didn’t move from her spot. She just stayed sitting on a chair directly next to LaFontaine. Every once in a while, she would shift. But only a little such as moving her hand to LaFontaine’s wrist from their hand or reaching up to smooth a few strands of hair that were misplaced. The gauze were off of LaFontaine’s face now, the scabs and a few bruises now exposed. Perry would gently caress them every so often.

After a few hours, Perry stood up and wiped away her tears.

“I’m… going to the bathroom,” She spoke softly, as if she was trying to not wake someone.

“I’ll go with you,” Laura popped up off her seat.

They all agreed that Perry was not fit to be alone and Laura had bathroom duty. Carmilla was already gone, on food duty, and Danny was on the chair that was next to Perry’s taking over watching LaFontaine.

Perry just looked at Laura sadly then walked out of the room, Laura following closely behind.

Laura stood against the wall, waiting for Perry to finish, patiently. Perry didn’t take long and they were on their way back to the room in no time.

Perry didn’t mind all the help that her friends were doing to make her feel better, but with all the surveillance it made her feel almost like a prisoner.

A few hours later, Perry went to the bathroom again, followed closely by Laura. She didn’t like all these things. Yes, it was nice to constantly have a friend around but Perry was getting sick of being escorted everywhere and watched at all times. She didn’t need a babysitter.

With all of this on top of the LaFontaine situation and sleep deprivation, Perry was just about to lose it. She washed her hands and dried them off but they were shaking uncontrollably. Laura was ready to go back to the room like always, even turning towards the door, but she was a bit surprised to see Perry just standing in front of the sinks. The curly-haired girl was breathing deeply and beginning to tremble.

“Hey…” Laura started, taking a few careful steps towards Perry. “Is everything okay?” As soon as those words left her mouth, she knew she had said the wrong thing.

Something in Perry snapped. “ _No,_ I am not okay,” she turned to face Laura. There were tears brimming in her eyes but she looked angry. “What part of _any_ of this is okay?” She turned back around to face the mirrors but her gaze was down at the sink and countertops, a bit apologetic for her outburst. “My-” she paused, only just, to weigh her options of the next few words. “-best friend is just… _lying_ in there. In a coma. Like a _fucking_ vegetable and I can’t do anything,” A pause, then a few tears fell. “I can’t stop _thinking_ about it. I can’t help but cry. I can’t sleep. Hell, I can’t even live. I can’t live without LaFontaine,” Perry’s voice broke saying LaFontaine’s name. She had begun to tremble more, her head bowing lower.

“Well, I’m sure LaF will wake up soon then-” Laura, again, regretted the words she had said.

“No, Laura,” Perry turned towards Laura again. “You know what the doctor said. It could be years. _Years,_ Laura! Years…” Her gaze flitted around the room, unable to focus on anything. “What am I going to do if LaFontaine’s in a coma and winter break comes? Or spring break when I leave for Germany? Or graduation? What am I going to do?” Perry broke down in sobs, covering her eyes with her hands. She couldn’t keep herself together anymore. Her knees quivered, almost buckling under her own weight.

Laura didn’t say anything this time, afraid she’d say the wrong thing again. Well, what is the right thing to say? This is why Danny’s better at comforting people. Perry probably would have fallen if Laura hadn’t wrapped her arms around her as they made their way back to the room. Danny was so much better at this than her. Laura opened the door and Danny was up in an instant, already rushing to Perry’s side.

It took a while, but Danny calmed Perry down. Once her sobs had subsided, she almost instantaneously fell asleep. Perry was laying on the bench, her head resting on Danny’s lap. Danny just let her sleep, petting the soft, ginger curls. Based on what Laura had said in the past week, Perry was having nightmares. She braced herself for the upcoming startling wake up.

Which, she rightfully braced herself for because Perry soon woke up in a panic. Danny quickly pulled her into a hug, rubbing her back slowly. It took a moment or two for Perry to realize she wasn’t in danger anymore and that it was Danny’s arms that were wrapped around her.

“S-Sorry…” Perry pulled away, her heart still pounding in her chest. “I had another nightmare...”

“You really can’t sleep, huh?” Danny started to get more worried seeing this first hand.

“No… Not anymore…”

“Do you need anything?” Danny rubbed her thumb on the back of Perry’s hand, trying to calm her down.

Perry just shook her head, her gaze falling to her lap. Danny sighed. She wished she could do something more to help.

She stood up slowly, her limbs still lazy from sleep. “Laura?” She didn’t like her escorts but if they felt the need to, she wouldn’t stop them.

Laura stood up, hearing her name. “Bathroom?”

Perry nodded and walked to the door, the shorter girl following along tentatively. They walked to the bathroom, Laura leaning against the wall like always. Laura fixed her hair and adjusted her shirt, waiting for Perry to come out. It didn’t take long and Perry was at the sinks again, Just staring at the countertops.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Laura stepped forward.

Perry let out a quick breath through her nose, sounded almost like she was amused. “That’s a penny badly spent,”

Laura placed a hand on Perry’s shoulder. “I just… hate seeing you like this,”

“I know..” Perry sighed. “It’s just… LaFontaine… School… Life without LaFontaine…”

“I’m sorry… Things are getting so messed up lately,” Laura squeezed Perry’s shoulder. “Do you wanna go back to the room?”

After a few deep breaths, Perry nodded and the two went back to the room. Perry sat down in front of LaFontaine and Danny handed her another cup of water. Since she cried herself to sleep, she hadn’t had the chance to rehydrate herself and Danny wanted to make sure she was okay.

Perry muttered a small “thanks” and took the cup, sipping it until it was gone. She put the cup on the table next to her and touched LaFontaine’s good arm. The skin was like always: warm and soft. She rested her head against Lafontaine’s upper arm, taking a deep breath in. Tears came again to her eyes. The familiar scent brought back memories. Too many memories. Even though they smelled the same, the smell of hospital was heavy on their skin. She sighed and sat up, grabbing a hold of LaFontaine’s hand.

Hours passed by and everyone had fallen asleep. Everyone except for Perry, at least. She couldn’t sleep. Rather, she didn’t want to sleep. The nightmares were too bad. Even though she couldn’t remember them, she knew the panic that she woke up to.

Perry laid her head next to LaFontaine’s arm, smelling the familiar scent. LaFontaine’s arm twitched and Perry just sighed, stroking it gently. Until she noticed that this twitch was different. It was more like it was trying to move. That’s when she noticed that the heart rate monitor had started to speed up.

She sat up straight, looking at the monitor. It had been resting at 60 but now it was up in the 70’s. Perry looked down at LaFontaine’s face, raising to her feet. She’d be lying if she said she wasn’t getting her hopes up. When nothing was happening, she reached up and started to stroke LaFontaine’s cheek. The heart monitor sped up to the 80’s. Perry could feel the nervousness creeping into the pit of her stomach.

LaFontaine’s eyes opened slowly, blinking and opening more and more each time. They looked around in total confusion, then panic. The monitor jumped as their heart started to pound. Suddenly, they saw Perry.

“LaFontaine?”

“Perr?” they gruffly whispered.

Their small moment was cut short by two nurses barging into the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm always open for requests/prompts over on my [tumblr](http://the--harbor.tumblr.com)!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original on my [tumblr](http://the--harbor.tumblr.com/post/106596823699/missing-yesterday-part-6)

Their eyelids felt like they had been rusted shut, nearly protesting when they tried to open. The first few blinks around were blurry but the world soon came into view. They were looking at… a ceiling? The heart rate monitor beeped fast and loud in their ears. Wait, heart rate monitor? They were in a hospital?

LaFontaine had been in a hospital before, several times to be honest, but waking up in one is a different story. They wanted to turn, to look around and see what was going on but they’re neck refused to move. It almost felt like something was preventing it from doing so. They panicked. What was going on? What happened?

Then, Perry came into view. The panic subsided all but instantly when their eyes met Perry’s. They wanted to smile but something was wrong. Her eyes were filled with tears but looked so happy yet sad at the same time. What was going on?

“LaFontaine?” Perry questioned like she thought it wasn’t real. LaFontaine’s chest swelled with amazement when Perry didn’t say _“Susan”_.

“Perr?” LaFontaine surprised themselves at the low gruffness of their voice.

More tears were threatening to fall from Perry’s eyes and they tried to reach up to wipe them away but their stiff arm protested any movement. Also, they noticed that Perry was holding their hand which made their heart start to pound in a different way.

Just then, two nurses busted through the door.

“Is she seizing?” One of them asked loudly, rushing over to LaFontaine. The commotion stirred the sleeping girls on the other side of the room. LaFontaine tried to sit up when they came in but quickly laid back down with a pained groan. That’s when they noticed how much their body was stiffly sore.

“N-No, she’s not,” Perry mumbled lowly, stumbling out of the way of the nurses.

LaFontaine was confused and scared with one nurse hurriedly checking everything they were hooked up to and the other bent over them with a panicked expression. They gripped onto Perry’s hand with an iron grip, much like they had done when they were kids and LaFontaine was getting yelled at or had to face a situation where they were scared.

The nurse carefully checked everything before turning to LaFontaine. “Do you know where you are?” One of them asked.

“I-in the hospital?” What were they suppose to say?

“I’ll get the doctor,” the other nurse said before she left.

“Are you confused?” The nurse asked.

“Uh, yeah. Why did you barge in? And why can’t I move my neck?”

“I feel like that is more of a conversation for the doctor…” The nurse looked to Perry before leaving the room to find the doctor.

“What-what are they talking about?” LaFontaine asked, becoming worried but also amused because, thanks to the heart monitor, they had never heard themselves be nervous before.

“Well…” Perry moved into LaFontaine’s small field of vision. She glanced at the monitor, not liking how fast it was beeping. “You… You were in a car crash. A hit-and-run. No one really knows what happened but you… You were-”

“You’re awake!” The doctor greeted as he walked into the room, cutting Perry off and successfully waking up the other girls.

“A-awake?” LaFontaine looked over at Perry. “How long was I asleep?”

“You were in a coma,” the doctor said instead.

“Coma?” The question was full of curiosity, amazement, and slight excitement. They had to document what they remembered. For science.

“You were out for a week,”

“A whole week?” LaFontaine looked to Perry, wanting to ask how her test went. They knew how much that test meant but now was not the time.

“Yes. Are you feeling okay? Dizzy? Confused? In any pain?”

“Sore?”

The doctor laughed a bit. “Yeah, that’s something that’ll go away. You might be a little weak from not eating, your muscles may ache or tire easy from not being used, and you shouldn’t get up or move too much until tomorrow when we can bring in a physical therapist, just to make sure that your motor functions weren’t damaged. We’ll also have to do that again when you’re feeling better,”

“Okay, doc,” The doctor was dumping a lot of information on them at once and they were still trying to get the fact that they were in a coma through their head.

“Oh, we’ll also have to bring in a policeman. Since you’re one of the only people who were there during the accident, they need to talk to you about it,”

“O… okay…” LaFontaine looked up at the ceiling. They tried to remember what happened, nothing initially coming.

“We’ll get you out of that brace and into a different one. One that’ll be more comfortable,”

“Okay, thanks,”

The doctor left in search of the brace and a nurse. LaFontaine’s hand lessened it’s grip on Perry’s as soon as the door was closed.

“H-how are you feeling?” Perry questioned, touching LaFontaine’s face. She was still in doubt that they were actually there right now, but nonetheless she was nearly in tears from happiness.

“Alright. A little uncomfortable…” They were going to reach over and touch Perry with their other hand but stopped as soon as their arm came into view. “Whoa! I have a cast!”

Perry smiled, genuinely smiled, for the first time in what seemed like years. “Yes. There’s one on your leg too,”

“Too bad it’s not colorful like the one in 3rd grade. Remember that?”

“How could I forget your multicolored neon cast that you never stopped talking about?”

“It was cool!”

“It was dirty,”

The others slowly rose from their spots.

“And the ginger twins are reunited,”

“Be nice,” Laura scolded Carmilla only to get a roll of the eyes in response. Perry started wonder if that was Carmilla’s way of being nice and showing that she cares.

“Is that Laura?” LaFontaine tried to look and see her.

“And Danny,” Danny smiled as they call came into view.

“The gangs all here,” LaFontaine smiled a little.

“Alright, let’s get you out of that brace,” the doctor said as he came back into the room with a nurse in tow.

The girls backed away to make room for the doctor and nurse. The two medical experts quickly and swiftly changed the braces. Now, instead of having a brace that also was around their chest, it was just a brace that sat around their neck. It looked much better than before. Perry mentally noted how they put the neck brace on and LaFontaine’s expressions to make sure they weren’t in any pain. But mainly, she was amazed at the bruising on LaFontaine’s skin. It made her wonder how many more bruises were under their gown.

The doctor made sure everything fit alright and nothing was too tight before leaving. The four practically surrounded LaFontaine since their vision was so limited.

“So I was in a coma?” LaFontaine asked only to get nods from everyone. “How long was I out again?”

“A week,” Perry answered softly, touching a few scabs on LaFontaine’s face.

“Wow… So… It’s Friday?”

“Yes,” Perry nodded.

“Well, Saturday, technically. It’s past midnight,” Laura noted.

“Saturday… I was really out for a week? Not just a few hours?”

“No, a week,” Carmilla said, widening her eyes a bit at remembering all the nights she spent trying to calm Perry down.

“Carmilla,” Laura lightly backhanded Carmilla’s arm.

“What? That’s how long it was,”

“Well you don’t have to say it like _that,_ ”

“So if I’ve been out for a week… Then… It’s October?” LaFontaine still tried to wrap their head around being in a coma.

“Yes,” Danny spoke this time.

“What’s the date?”

“October 3rd. Well, 4th,”

“October 4th... “ LaFontaine echoed, looking up to the ceiling. They really had been down for a week. ‘Wait, that means that you had your test,” their eyes shot to Perry, almost excitedly. They had forgotten from before. “How did it go? You were studying for so long,”

“Oh, you know,” Perry shrugged. “Like a normal test,”

“Sorry I couldn’t help you study…” LaFontaine drifted off. They really liked when they helped Perry study German. In their attempts, Perry had actually taught LaFontaine pretty well. Also, they loved hearing Perry speak German.

“No, it’s okay. Danny and Laura helped,”

“Really?” They smiled, wishing they had seen the awkward between the two.

“Ja,” Laura smiled.

Everyone rolled their eyes but it was all in good spirit. They kept talking, LaFontaine still trying to wrap their head around the whole coma thing. They didn’t remember anything. Well, they did remember a faint siren...

After a few minutes, Carmilla seemed to have had enough. “Well, since ginger #1 is awake, I think I’ll be off,”

“Wait, you’re leaving?” Laura questioned.

“Yeah. You guys aren’t the only ones with tests, you know,” Carmilla raised an eyebrow with a small smirk before leaving the room.

“That reminds me… I have a paper to work on…” Laura said apologetically. “I’ve been putting it off all week. Sorry, looks like I gotta leave too. Hope you feel better soon,” She nodded to LaFontaine then left, quickly trying to catch up to Carmilla.

“Do you have to leave, Danny?” Perry asked, wishing she’d stay. Even though Perry’d like nothing more than to be alone with LaFontaine, she’d love to have more company.

“No. Someone’s gotta stay here and get you food,” Danny smiled. “And make sure that you’re sleeping,”

“Yeah…”

LaFontaine looked from Danny to Perry and back again. But they understood. They were glad that Perry had been taken care of but something about that exchange seemed off and made jealousy start to boil in the pit of their stomach but they ignored it.

After that, they talked most of the night away. LaFontaine was so well rested that they felt no need to rest. Perry, on the other hand, was extremely tired and LaFontaine could tell. Danny had drifted to sleep almost an hour ago, which allowed them to talk privately. Now, the sun was just about to rise and Perry was beginning to think that it was possible to fall asleep standing up.

“Hey… You look so tired…” LaFontaine brought their hand up to Perry’s cheek after her head had fallen before jerking back up quickly. “Haven’t you slept?”

“Not really…” Perry’s gaze fell.

“How long?”

“A week,”

“You haven’t slept the _whole_ time I was out?”

“I… You know I can’t sleep without you…” Perry murmured, fighting to stay awake. The monitor sped up a little, LaFontaine’s heart speeding up from the comment. The faster beeps woke Perry up again.

LaFontaine scooted over on the bed, on the left side so their IV wouldn’t get tangled, and made enough room for Perry to lay down. “Then you need your sleep,”

Perry smiled but shook her head. “I couldn’t-”

“Lola. Get in the bed,”

Perry laughed a little and gave in, moving around the bed. She climbed in the warm spot that LaFontaine had been laying in. Instantly, her eyes grew heavy.

“Are you sleepy?” LaFontaine rolled onto their side, with only minimal pain, to look at Perry.

“No,” Perry sounded like she was half asleep already.

“Yeah, okay. Sure,” LaFontaine said sarcastically, smiling a little. The sound of LaFontaine being happy like that nearly made Perry cry. She had missed it too much.

“I don’t… I don’t want to leave you…” Perry murmured, fighting to stay awake.

“You’re right here. You won’t leave me,”

Perry smiled and scooted a bit closer to LaFontaine, just enough to feel their warmth. She was quickly losing her fight to stay awake. A tear fell from her eye without meaning to.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” LaFontaine gently wiped it away.

“I feel… like… when I wake up…” she sniffled. “You’ll still be in that coma…” Perry opened her eyes, gleaming with tears in the light, connecting them with LaFontaine’s.

Something inside her told her to lean forward and kiss them. It just felt right at that moment. Anxiety swelled in the pit of her stomach, her heart speeding up and breathing became difficult. She was going to but something stopped her.

“I promise that won’t happen…” LaFontaine whispered and pulled Perry into their body, letting out a pained breath. The monitor beeped faster for a little bit, their heart fluttering at their closeness right now.

“Does it hurt?” Perry’s face was now against LaFontaine’s chest. Her eyelids grew heavy at the familiar, comforting scent.

“A little… It’s really like one big ache,” LaFontaine took a deep, careful breath, stopping when their ribs protested then they let it out slowly. They enjoyed having Perry this close and they wondered what it was like for her the past week. “You know what the best part of wearing a hospital gown is?” they started, trying to lighten the mood a little.

“Mmm?” Perry was almost asleep.

“No bras,”

Perry had to laugh at that. “Weirdo…” The smile stayed on her face as she drifted into sleep. It was nice to have LaFontaine back. And it was also very nice to not have nightmares for once.

The nurses kept to their routine, coming in once every two hours. Each time, they would wake LaFontaine from a light rest, then they would talk to them for something to do until they left.

At noon, a nurse came in with something to eat. It wasn’t much but it was something and LaFontaine was hungry. They rolled onto their back and managed, with the help of the nurse, to sit up to eat. Once they were done, the nurse helped them back down and onto their side to face Perry again.

At 1, Perry woke up. At first she snuggled herself closer to LaFontaine until she heard a pained breath. She scooted back, her eyes opening quickly. After a full week of nightmares, she was prepared to be in panic mode but there was no panicked feelings, which was very comforting. Then, she remembered where she was.

“LaFontaine?” she asked, backing up to look into the familiar eyes.

“Perry?” LaFontaine asked back with a small smile.

“You’re still here,” Perry whispered, relaxing a bit.

“I told you I would be,” LaFontaine smoothed a few of Perry’s wild curls into place.

That feeling came to Perry again. Her eyes darted down to LaFontaine’s lips, only for a second. The conversation she had with Danny on Monday came back to her mind. She had to tell LaFontaine how she felt.

“LaFontaine?” A small pang of anxiety grew in her stomach.

“Perr?”

“I… I have something… I want to tell you…” Perry looked down at the mattress, her confidence faltering.

“Yeah?” LaFontaine’s tone turned serious. Perry was being weird.

Perry opened her mouth then closed it, letting out a breath. “Did you sleep?” she chickened out.

No matter how many times she wanted to ask or how many times she went through the process in her mind, she never had enough courage to go through it completely in real life.

LaFontaine narrowed their eyes a little. “Not really. I slept for a full week,” They knew Perry had something else she wanted to say but they didn’t question it.

Perry sighed softly and climbed out of the bed, helping LaFontaine lay on their back.

“Oh, wh-where’s Danny?” Perry looked around the room.

“She left a few hours ago but she got some food before she left,” LaFontaine motioned to the table beside them.

Perry smiled softly. “Wish I had caught her before she left…” She pulled out her phone to text a thank you to Danny. That’s when the doctor came in.

“Hello, Susan,” the doctor beamed. Both Perry and LaFontaine mentally corrected him but neither said anything. “How are you feeling today?”

“A bit achey,”

“That’s normal. We have the physical therapist ready, do you want her to come in?”

“Sure, doc,”

“Alright, I’ll be right back,” the doctor smiled and left.

“He is way too happy,” LaFontaine said as soon as he was out the door.

Perry let out an amused breath from her nose. “Would you like it if he came in all crabby?”

“Having a crabass doctor would be hilarious, Perr,”

“Susan, this is Dr. Mayr,” the doctor said, coming into the room with a middle aged looking woman following him.

“Hello, doctor,” LaFontaine greeted the woman when the woman came into their view.

“Hello,” She greeted back. “I’m just going to do some simple tests to see if you can still move properly,”

“Alright,”

“Can you lift your arms for me?” she asked and LaFontaine did.

Perry stood back, eating a little, and watching as they went through the whole thing. Dr. Mayr made LaFontaine do a whole bunch of things like wiggling their fingers and toes, picking up small things like a pencil or a hacky sack, and sitting them up to check their reflexes.

“Well, nothing seems to be damaged. Your muscles might get tired easy so no lifting things that are heavy for a while and don’t overexert yourself. But I’m sure your doctor already told you that,” Dr. Mayr said with a smile and a nod to both them and the doctor before leaving.

“Now, before I have the policeman come in,” the doctor moved into view. “I want to go over some questions with you to check what you remember,”

“Okay,”

“What’s your name?”

“LaFontaine,”

“Your full name,”

LaFontaine clenched their teeth a little. Perry noticed. “ _Susan_ LaFontaine,”

“Good. How old are you?”

“20,”

“Do you know where you are?”

“In a hospital?”

The doctor chuckled. “Well, yes, but where in the world?”

“Oh, Styria, Austria,”

“What’s the date?”

“September 26th- err… October… 4th…?”

“Hmm.. Well, it seems like everything’s pretty much in order. It’s common for coma patients to have a little trouble with the date. Well, since that’s all done, I’ll go get the policeman,”

The doctor wasn’t gone long before he came back in, policeman following. The policeman came up to the bed, holding a small notepad and a pen.

“Susan LaFontaine?” the policeman was tall and muscular. His voice fit his person: low and a little gruff, as if he had smoked for years.

“Yes?”

“I’m here to talk to you about the accident,”

“Okay,”

“Can you tell me everything that you remember?”

“I can try. It’s all kinda fuzzy…”

“That’s okay, take your time,”

“I remember…” They closed their eyes, trying hard to remember everything. “ I was… driving through an intersection and this… asshole came straight into the side of my car. I remember the car… flipping over and… and hitting my head on the steering wheel… Really hard… I could hear him drive away… and the sirens… after that… nothing,” Perry squeezed LaFontaine’s hand, her heart wrenching at the story.

The policeman wrote down a few notes. “What color was the light?”

“Green,”

“Where you first in the line?”

“No. I was… third? I believe,”

“Hmph. Do you remember the color of the car?”

“It… I think… I think it was… blue? Or… or black? Something dark…”

“Okay,” the policeman said, jotting down a few things before nodding. “I think that’s all. Thank you,” he nodded and walked out.

“No problem…” LaFontaine breathed before shifting their gaze to Perry’s worried expression.

“Is that really what happened?”

“Yes, Perr. I wouldn’t lie to a cop,”

“No, I mean… I can’t believe that happened…” Tears welled in her eyes.

“Hey, hey… don’t cry, okay? No crying,” It broke LaFontaine’s heart to see Perry so close to tears. And even the thought of Perry crying that whole week they were in a coma nearly made them cry themselves.

The doctor came back in, pulling LaFontaine’s attention. “We’ll have to keep you in the hospital until we can take off your casts and brace to make sure everything has healed properly,”

“How-how long will that be?” Perry asked.

“At least 3 more weeks,” the doctor turned to her.

“Three weeks…” Perry breathed.

“It’s not that long,” LaFontaine said, looking over at Perry. “At least I’ll be out in time for Halloween,”

Perry leaned forward in her chair, holding LaFontaine’s hand. “That’s true. You can eat all the candy again,”

“Hey, that was _one_ time,”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm always open for requests/prompts over on my [tumblr](http://the--harbor.tumblr.com)!


	7. Chapter 7

LaFontaine did their best to try to convince Perry that three weeks wasn't _that_ long and they'd be back at Silas soon. Perry wasn't buying it. She couldn't handle more time in a room that felt too empty but all too suffocating at the same time. She couldn't imagine sleeping in Carmilla's bed anymore. She was afraid of those nightmares preventing her rest again. LaFontaine just did their best to keep a smile on her face and to worry about the now rather than the tomorrows.

It took a lot of persuading and yet another cuddle session, but Perry was fine. She was so content knowing that LaFontaine was alright. Her eyes drifted up to the neck brace that prevented their eyes from meeting. She remembered the bruises that lay hidden underneath. The curiosity of more bruises that might be hidden underneath the gown burned through her thoughts. LaFontaine just barely noticed that Perry kept staring at their gown.

"Are you undressing me with your eyes?" They smiled, feeling very flattered but a bit embarrassed at the same time. The monitor sped up a little.

Perry's cheeks heated up instantly and she sat up, looking back at them. "N-no. Wh-why would I want to do that?" She scoffed, trying to play it off.

"I dunno, you kept looking at me like you were trying to see through this bullshit gown,"

"I wasn't..." She looked down, trying to hide her blush. "I was just wondering if you had any more bruises that I can't see..." Perry muttered, not sure why told the true reason.

"Oh. I've been wondering that too. You can check it out if you want,"

Perry's cheeks were on fire as her wide eyes looked into LaFontaine's in disbelief. "I can _what?_ "

LaFontaine had to laugh at her expression, quickly stopping because their ribs hurt too much. "You can see if I have any bruises. I can't see any part of my body unless I lift it and I'm curious too,"

"B-but your gown... If I t-took it off..."

"You've seen me naked before, Perry,"

"Yeah, but that was years ago!" She wouldn't tell about the countless of stolen peeks she took in their room nearly daily.

"What's the difference?"

"W-well... W-w-we've grown... A-and I wouldn't want you to be laying naked on the bed," she paused to gulp, pushing the image in her mind of her undressing LaFontaine like that away. "I mean, what if someone comes in?" She said lowly, as if someone could hear them.

"Perr, I'm wearing pants, you know that right?"

"Y-you are?" Perry didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed.

"Yeah. Crappy hospital ones but they do the trick,"

"So... I can see?" Perry's cheeks were still red which amused LaFontaine to no end.

"Yeah, go for it," LaFontaine tried their best to nod. "But you're going to have to help me,"

Perry helped turn LaFontaine to their side and undid the ties down their back. She gulped again and slid the flimsy material off their shoulders. She'd be lying if she said she wasn't _really_ enjoying this. Her hands ghosted down LaFontaine's back to move the material out of her view.

She nearly gasped at the bruise. It was just starting to come into its full purples, not looking like it would leave anytime soon. Her eyes were glued on it, trying to imagine what happened in order for it to get that big. The bruise covered a large part of their left ribcage, from what she could see.

"C-can I see the f-front...?" Perry whispered, accidentally saying what she was thinking outloud. Her heart sped up at the question and the monitor showed that LaFontaine's heart was doing the same thing.

"S-Sure," they whispered back.

Perry helped them roll back over and she was a bit too happy to see a blush on their cheeks. With another gulp, she slipped the gown over their front. She carefully covered LaFontaine's breasts with the leftover material.

The bruise on their ribcage was mostly in the back, making her feel a little better. There were a few smaller bruises, almost gone, that were dotted around. Perry's chest hurt with guilt. She knew she shouldn't blame herself but she couldn't help it. Her fingers ghosted over LaFontaine's tummy, gently gliding over the fading bruises. The monitor sped up a bit and Perry smiled a little. She watched as LaFontaine's chest rose and fell with each breath. It was relaxing and almost hypnotic.

She glanced up at her hand holding the gown over their breasts. Her eyes flickered down to the ill fitting faded blue pants. Perry's mind filled with how easy it could be to- No. She shouldn't be thinking about this.

"How.. does it look?" LaFontaine asked, breaking the silence.

"Amazing..." Perry whispered, accidently speaking her mind again, then shook her head. "No! I-I mean... You've got a few bruises..."

LaFontaine laughed a bit, watching Perry’s face intently as they felt her fingers brush over their skin. It takes all their strength not to laugh at how much it tickles. Perry looks up from their skin, pausing a second to look at how little of them was covered, and looks into their eyes.

“LaFontaine…?” Perry started, the butterflies fighting to get free from her stomach.

“Yeah?”

Perry opened her mouth to speak, words failing her. She closed her mouth and took a deep breath in, moving up to hover over LaFontaine more so they didn’t have to strain to see her.

“I-”

“Are we interrupting something?” an amused voice from across the room spoke.

Perry’s face paled as her head snapped over to the noise. Laura, Danny, and Carmilla were all looking very amused, standing in the doorway of the room. They were in a bad position. Perry was leaned over LaFontaine, who was only wearing pants and a gown that covered their chest.

“N-No! I-I was just… just…” Perry searched for the words. “I’m not going to talk about this,” she said quickly, the heat returning to her cheeks as she quickly redressed LaFontaine.

Laura, Danny, and Carmilla had came over at 5 for a really late lunch/early dinner to be greeted to that sight. They all knew the two had feelings for each other and were waiting for the day something would happen when they would _finally_ start dating. They all came in, trying to put the scene behind them.

The day continued as normal. They sat and talked, enjoying their food. Together, they had figured out how to move LaFontaine's bed so they could sit up and look at everyone easier. The girls left a few hours after sunset, leaving the two gingers alone together again. Laura had brought some movies for the two, so Perry and LaFontaine watched a few until they both fell asleep next to each other.

Sunday came too fast. Perry didn't want to leave. She wanted to stay there with LaFontaine for those three weeks so they weren't alone. Also, so she wasn't alone.

The girls came again at around lunchtime with food.

"Hey Danny," LaFontaine greeted, smiling as the tall redhead came into their line of sight. "Hey Laura," The small brunette appeared happily behind the oversized ginger. "And hey... Uh... Daaah..." They laughed a little, closing their eyes.

"Seriously, Einstein? I haven't been gone more than 12 hours and you already forget my name?" She moved into their line of sight with her arms crossed.

"Ack, sorry Carmilla. It's this hospital, I think. It's so dull and boring,"

Perry frowned a little. They never forgot people's names. But she shook it off. Slip ups happen.

The five enjoyed the rest of the day together until it was just about sunset. Perry didn't want to leave. LaFontaine didn't want her to leave either but what would their floor do without their floor don?

"You can come back right after your last class, okay?" LaFontaine smiled, squeezing Perry's hand a little.

"I'll rush right over. I promise," Perry smiled sadly.

Their goodbye lingered too long. It stuck in Perry's mind. Their words echoed through her head as the four rode the bus back to Silas.

When they got back, the three split from Danny and said a small goodbye. Perry didn't say much on the way back to their dorms, feeling a tad like the third wheel between Laura and Carmilla. When did they get this close? Didn't Laura like Danny?

"Are you gonna take my bed?" The voice snapped her out of thought.

"What?"

"Taking my bed again tonight?" Carmilla repeated with a raised eyebrow that looked sarcastic but Perry was almost sure it wasn't.

"Oh... No, I've taken your bed enough. I think I'll try my room tonight,"

"You sure, Perry? I mean, Carmilla could just-"

"No, Laura. It's okay. I should probably get back to my own room," Perry smiled and it had a hint of being genuine. “But I should get my clothes from your room. I’ll get the rest of the things tomorrow between classes,”

The three made their way to the room where they always seemed to meet up in. She quickly gathered a few things, not wanting to overstay her welcome, and went to the door to leave.

"Goodnight, girls," she said, turning down the hallway to her room.

The familiar walk to her room made her chest feel heavier and heavier with each step. Perry nearly collapsed by the weight on herself when she got to the door. She shifted a little and swallowed. Her hand raised slowly and set gently down on the handle. She couldn't bring herself to turn it. Why was opening her door so difficult?

With a sigh, she looked down the hallways. It felt so much different from the hospital. She had gotten used to it. Or maybe it was LaFontaine. The halls just seemed too different without them. The whole building seemed off without them. The mood was so low, especially for being just past lights out.

She pulled out her phone and looked down at it. There was no way she could take Carmilla’s bed again. But she couldn’t stay here. It was too difficult to be in without LaFontaine. She scrolled through more of her contacts, most girls from her floor or other floor dons in the building. Finally her eyes settled on one.

**Perr:** _“Hey”_

A pause. It said _‘delivered’_ but not _‘read’._ Perry shook her head and walked around the floor slowly, trying to take her mind off of entering her room alone. She had almost reached her door again when she felt the gentle vibrations in her pocket. Pulling it out, she looked at the message.

**Danny L:** _“Hey. Everything okay?”_

**Perr:** _“Yes”_

**Danny L:** _“Really?”_

A pause.

**Perr:** _“I guess not”_

**Danny L:** _“You can come to my room if you want”_

**Perr:** _“Don’t you have a roommate?”_

**Danny L:** _“I used to but she transferred out and I haven’t been assigned anyone new.”_

**Danny L:**   _“I’ve got an empty bed”_

**Perr:** _“I couldn’t”_

**Danny L:** _“I insist”_

And that’s how Perry winded up walking to the Summer Society lodge after dark. Danny has been such a great comfort ever since this incident started. She even agreed to meet Perry halfway to the lodge, especially since Silas can be pretty dangerous at night. Together, they made their way to the lodge and up into Danny’s room. Well, it looked more like a small apartment.

Perry had only been at Danny’s room once, never actually inside. She looked around the small kitchenette, which was more than she had in her dorm. Danny kindly made them both mugs of tea and lead her to the empty bed.

"So what did LaF say?" asked Danny as she sat down, taking a tiny sip of her tea.

"About what?" Perry shrugged a little.

"About liking her? You said you'd confess once she woke up,"

"Oh... I- I didn't-"

"Well, I assume it went well seeing you and LaF gettin all..." Danny moved her torso in a small circular motion.

"Oh, no! I- that wasn't what it looked like," Perry could feel her cheeks heating up again.

"Uh-huh," Danny raised her eyebrows before taking another sip of tea.

"No, I'm serious. I mean, I haven't even said anything. Well, I was going to but you guys interrupted me,"

"Oh, sorry 'bout that. We'll be more careful next time,"

"How's things between you and Laura? Have you told her yet?" Perry switched the conversation to Danny, not wanting to talk about that anymore. It was hard enough as it was with the images of LaFontaine's bare torso, just barely covered, under her that hadn’t left her mind ever since this afternoon.

"N-no... Not yet," Danny slumped a little, her gaze falling to the floor.

"You should. I think you two'd be great for each other,"

Danny chuckled a bit. "Yeah, okay," she rolled her eyes. The conversation dropped off for a minute or two before Danny broke it. "I won't tell Laura until you tell LaFontaine," a mischievous grin tugged at her lips.

"Unt-til I-? You shouldn't base your confessions on me,"

"No, I will. I'll hold back until you get the courage to talk to LaF,"

The conversation swarmed in Perry's head. It was dark in the room now, Danny in her bed and Perry in the empty one. She had woken up with a start from a nightmare a while ago and had spent the time since then just sitting and thinking.

This bed was too big. Too empty with just one person. Perry bit her lip a little and got up. She quietly made her way across the room and stood over the other bed for a little bit, thinking how stupid she must be for even thinking of doing this.

Danny felt one side of her bed shift with weight. She was nearly half asleep so she just let it happen. After the shifting had stopped, she rolled over and put her arm lazily around Perry.

"Nightmare?" Danny mumbled into Perry's curls. They tickled her nose a little but she was too sleepy to care.

"Yeah, sorry," Perry apologized, about ready to get up.

"No. Stay. Do you wanna talk about it?" Danny offered even though she wasn't quite sure she could keep that promise.

"No... Well... It's just... I don't remember them. And I keep getting this feeling of guilt..."

"It's not your fault. Just sleep now, though," Danny sighed slowly, slipping into sleep after she was sure Perry was done talking.

The two slept like that all night. It was the first night Perry had had more than an hour rest at Silas in a week. She was glad she had a friend like Danny.

The first week was difficult for Perry, always feeling bad that while she's in class because she knew LaFontaine was sitting alone in a hospital bed. Perry started to bring LaFontaine's favorite brownies with her when she went to visit. She was going to confess her feelings when Danny got up to leave for the bathroom but she had chickened out. The rest of the the days that week lasted forever and the nights were too short. She wanted to spend more time with LaFontaine.

The next week was a bit easier on Perry. She was starting to get used to the routine. The days were still long and the nights would always be too short. Her dreams were still plagued with nightmares but it would go away if she was sleeping next to Danny. She started to think it was just the comfort of knowing LaFontaine was okay or having someone so comforting around. Either way, everyone was grateful that Perry was finally getting sleep.

Everyday, Perry brought something for LaFontaine. Somedays it was cookies, others were brownies. Sometimes she would bring some of their favorite foods. Once, she had managed to get away with stealing a piece of pie from the caf and brought it to them.

One day during the last week, Perry brought a full home cooked meal. The three other girls decided to not go, even though she made enough for the five. It was the first time they were alone at a mealtime like this. Perry loved it. It made her feel like she was on a date.

The two sat on the bed, LaFontaine now able to move much easier, and ate. LaFontaine absolutely loved Perry's cooking so they ate as much as they could. Afterwards, Perry put on their favorite movie. LaFontaine was feeling the effects of eating so much and was easily getting sleepy, especially with Perry curled up in their side.

"Hey... LaFontaine...?" Perry had been sitting in anxiety, trying to keep her breathing steady even though she felt like she might suffocate.

"Hm?" They tried to keep their eyes open but they were half asleep no matter how hard they tried. LaFontaine was sure that if this brace wasn't on their neck, their head would be nodding as they tried to stay awake.

"I... I have something to tell you..."

"Mmm..." They wanted to pay attention, they really did. Because Perry's important. Perry things are important and she doesn't like it when they don't pay attention. But they were so tired.

"Well.. F-for a while... I... I've... Liked you. I mean, I've always liked you. But for the past few years... I've... had feelings for you..." Perry didn't look up at LaFontaine. She didn't move. She could barely breathe. After so long, she'd confessed. Not in the most confident way or with the best words but it didn't matter. What mattered is that she said it.

After nearly a minute of no response, Perry looked up. She giggled a little and shook her head playfully. LaFontaine was asleep. Perry was a little disappointed but at least she had said her feelings. The second time around would probably be better.

The rest of the week passed by so slowly and LaFontaine didn't mention what happened last night. Which was very weird. They always asked questions. LaFontaine was a scientist. It was their job to ask questions. But they didn't mention it once. They didn't even seem to remember that they had eaten together.

On Sunday, all four of the girls were gathered in LaFontaine's room. They had come to watch the doctor take the casts off, Laura especially. Now, they were waiting for the doctor to come back with more x-rays of LaFontaine's neck.

"Are you excited?" Danny asked, watching Perry cross in front of her for the millionth time since LaFontaine left the room.

"Yeah, I guess," Perry smiled, not stopping her pacing. "I don't know. I'm worried, but I'm also excited. I don't know. I just want the doctor to be done already,"

The girls waited for another 20 minutes before the doctor came back in, holding the x-rays. He wasn't as happy today, looking rather tired instead. LaFontaine limped in behind him. After not using their ankle for so long, it was already getting tired.

"LaFontaine!" Perry exclaimed quietly, rushing to their side for a hug.

"Careful, Perr. I still got a few bruises and sore spots," LaFontaine nearly laughed. They loved being able to hold Perry again, and not having their heart audible for everyone to hear the rapid pound of their heart rate every time they touched.

"Oh, sorry," Perry loosened her grip and took a step back, her hands still lingering on their shoulders.

"Okay, well here are your x-rays," the doctor set the two pictures up against a light board on the wall. He flipped it on and stared intently at them along with everyone in the room. "Looks like it's healed a lot since you came in. But just to be safe, I want you to wear the brace for the next week. It doesn't have to be constantly, but when it starts to hurt or get tired, put it on,"

"Okay, doc. Thanks for everything," LaFontaine nodded, studying their x-rays.

"No problem. Come back in a week and we'll check to see if you still need that brace, okay?" He smiled with a nod to everyone before he left.

"Ready to go back?" Laura gently punched LaFontaine's shoulder.

"Oh, yeah. I'm so ready to get out of here,"

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm always open for requests/prompts over on my [tumblr](http://the--harbor.tumblr.com)!


	8. Chapter 8

LaFontaine stirred as the sun shined through the window and into their eyes. Something tickled their nose, making them crack an eye open. A familiar mess of curls lay spread out in front of them and they smiled a little, closing their eyes again. They successfully fell back asleep for a while.

The next time they woke up was because of the closing of the door. They rolled over, scanning over the room sleepily. It was probably time to wake up. They had to get up and do things like a normal human would in the morning rather than sleep it all away. With a sigh, they flipped on their back and accidentally drifted back asleep.

They woke up a few minutes later and shook their head. It was time to get up. With a groan, LaFontaine sat up and rubbed their face a little. They forced themselves to stand up and shuffle to the bathroom to brush their teeth. But something seemed missing. They couldn't put their finger on it but something was just off.

When they finished brushing their teeth, they shuffled back out and went to their dresser. They grabbed the first clothes they found and got dressed. Just as they were pulling down their over shirt, the door opened.

They turned around, wondering who would barge into their room so early in the morning. In the doorway stood a girl with the curls that they vaguely remember seeing this morning.

"Oh, you're up," she smiled big and shut the door behind her with her foot, carrying two plates of food in her hands. She walked over and gave them one. "I made you breakfast,"

For a second, they couldn't remember who this girl was and why she was offering them breakfast. But as soon as they looked into her eyes, everything clicked. It was one of  _those_ mornings, LaFontaine figured. They grinned and looked at the plate of food, their stomach rumbling.

"Thanks, Perr. This looks amazing and I'm starving," they said, sitting down on their bed and started to practically shovel the food in their mouth.

Perry smiled back, sitting down next to them. "Glad you like it. Thought you could use a good breakfast today, with being back at Silas and all,"

They were slightly confused. Perry said "being back". When did they leave?

"But, anyway. Student health services excused you from all your classes for the day to get you used to the campus after being gone for so long,"

So long? Get used to the campus? They already knew the campus. It wasn't their first year and school had already been going for a little more than a month.

Before they could ask, someone knocked at the door. Perry set down her plate and quickly went to the door, switching into floor don mode in an instant. She opened the door, expecting it to be a troubled girl but instead Danny was there.

"Oh, hi Danny," she smiled, slipping out of floor don mode.

"Hey Perry. Just wanted to check on you two before you went to class,"

"Oh, LaFontaine got permission to miss all classes today,"

"Really? Lucky! I have so many essays to grade in my TA class," Danny groaned. "I wish I didn't have to show up,"

"Oh, don't say that. Anyway, I just made some breakfast so we’re still eating. Do you want to come in?" Perry offered.

"Yeah, sure," Danny shrugged.

She walked in and sat down on a chair, pulling it from a desk. They all talked together until the food was gone. After that, the three left and met up with Laura in the quad. They chatted until Perry and Laura had to leave for class.

LaFontaine spent the rest of the day bouncing around from friend to friend in between their classes. Even though they loved that they didn't have class, it was actually super boring.

"Hey... What's with all the pumpkins and skeletons everywhere?" They asked Perry as they were walking back to their dorm after her last class of the day had finished.

"Because it's four days till Halloween," she tried not to sound accusatory. Perry remembered that the doctor said they would have trouble with the date.

"Four days?" They widened their eyes. "I swear it was September just yesterday. I'm never gonna get a costume in time!"

Perry patiently explained the situation to them, taking a lot of time to make sure they got everything. She understood that being out of school and not worrying about the day for a month could make them lose track of time. LaFontaine could hardly believe that it wasn't September anymore. They wanted to believe that Perry was pranking them but everything seemed to make sense. It was a bit too chilly to be September and they didn't remember that so many leaves had fallen.

That night, the whole group came together for dinner, except for Carmilla. Perry started to notice that something was off. LaFontaine seemed to be confused whenever someone asked about how they were doing or how it feels to be back on campus. Something was weird but Perry brushed it off.

She shouldn’t have. She shouldn’t have brushed it off. She learned that over the next two days.

The first day LaFontaine was back, they knew all their classes but again they asked why everything looked so much like Halloween. Perry knew something was wrong now but didn’t get a chance to mention it, getting cut off by one of their lab partners for a really big experiment. He had reminded them of their test that they were going to have to make up the next day and that they should study because it was one of the hardest tests the class was ever given.

LaFontaine spent a long time studying that night. Perry was laying on her bed, a book in complete German that she had to read for her class was open in her lap. But she wasn’t reading it. Behind it, she was more nervous than she had ever felt before.

“H-hey LaFontaine?” she started, surprising herself. She didn’t want to say anything yet but it just slipped out. Her chest felt like a blanket of lead had been thrown over it.

“Yeah?” they asked, not looking up from their notes.

She swallowed and closed her book. “Umm… I… I have something to tell you,”

“What is it?” they kept writing for a while until they noticed that Perry wasn’t saying anything. LaFontaine looked up from their notes and saw Perry up and cleaning the window furiously. “Perr, is everything alright?”

“Huh? Yeah! Everything’s… everything’s perfect,”

“What did you want to tell me?”

“F-Forget it, it was nothing,”

LaFontaine rolled their eyes a little. “It’s obviously nothing. What’s really wrong?” They turned to face her.

“Nothing! Nothing’s wrong,”

LaFontaine got up and walked over to her. “Perry,”

“Yes?”

“Look at me,”

Perry looked up. “What?”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing!” she turned to the window and scrubbed a bit.

“Perry, that window is  _clean_ ,”

“No it’s not. See? Right there. That is a smudge,” she said pointing to a random spot on the glass before starting to scrub it.

“Perr, there is nothing there. What is wrong?”

“I told you, LaFontaine. Nothing,”

LaFontaine grabbed her wrist to stop them. “Lola,” Perry turned to LaFontaine, not really having a choice. “What. Is. Wrong?”

Perry opened her mouth to say something but the words wouldn’t come out. She quickly pulled away and started walking to the door. “Do you want some brownies? I’m gonna go make some brownies,”

“Perr, no,”

“No? Cookies? Cake? Dinner? I can go make anything,”

LaFontaine rushed across the room and grabbed Perry’s arm. “ _Lola_. Just _shut up_  and  _tell me_ ,”

Perry sighed and looked down. “I… Well…” She had no where to go and she had promised to tell LaFontaine as soon as they woke up. She had waited long enough. With a sigh, she started again. “Ever since middle school… I’ve… felt a certain way about you,” She glanced up at LaFontaine who just nodded at her to continue. Her face grew pink. “And in high school… I knew… I…  _liked_  you,”

LaFontaine fought a little smile. “You…”

“I have feelings for you,” Perry turned and looked at the wall.

Now LaFontaine was in disbelief. They had loved Perry for so long and to actually hear those words pass over her lips pretty much wiped everything from existing.

“You-”

“I love you… LaFontaine…” Perry looked into their eyes, a deep blush coloring her cheeks. “I love you,” she breathed.

LaFontaine let out a little laugh at first before bubbling into full on rounds laughter.

“LaFontaine, this isn’t funny!” Perry pulled away from their grip and crossed her arms, turning away.

“No, no. I’m sorry,” their laughter subsided but the big grin remained on their face. “I just… I’m so happy to hear you say that. I’ve loved you for so long,”

“Really?” Perry turned to them, about to be in tears but unsure why.

“Yeah, Perr. I’ve only been hinting at it for, like, 10 years,”

Perry laughed too. How had she been so blind for so long? When the two got in bed, they shared their first kiss. All those years spent sitting and wondering if the other had shared the same feelings came washing over them. Their passion grew more and more until it lead to clothes being strewn across the floor and hands running over hot flesh.

The next day, LaFontaine nearly was panicked as they woke up to a naked Perry. They quickly got up and dressed themselves, wondering why they were naked as well. As they picked up the clothes everywhere, they tried to remember what happened the night before but recalled nothing.

Perry woke up soon after and didn’t have a care in the world. The previous night had been the happiest night of her life. She got up slowly and dressed herself before going to make breakfast. The rest of the morning continued like normal until they again asked why everything looked so much like Halloween. It was Wednesday now. They had asked this the last two days. It was probably that date thing. If they couldn’t get it through their mind that it was October, then they obviously would have trouble remembering why it was almost Halloween. That was probably it, Perry concluded. But she was wrong.

Because of their test, LaFontaine came back to the dorm room much later than usual. They seemed to be extremely annoyed and brain-dead when they returned. Perry put her arms around them, a bit different than usual, Lafontaine noticed. Now she was not afraid if she seemed to bring her body closer and feel their’s more. LaFontaine was a bit too annoyed to comment on it.

“I can’t believe he gave me a test today! I should have at least had a day warning! I could have studied! I am so lucky that I knew about most of the stuff on the test,” they complained into their pillow.

Perry knew something was wrong now. It couldn’t be the fact that they forgot the date when they woke up. It had to be something more. But what was wrong? How would she even ask about what was going on? Who should she go to?

She came up with some reason, that she knew was bullshit, of how it could be just something normal. Trying to make things better, she kissed their cheek but frowned a little when they looked surprised. They looked completely amazed that she would even bring her face that close to their’s. Did they not remember the night before? Perry’s bullshit reason was now forgotten as she laid awake all night, trying to figure out what was happening.

She put up with it through all of Thursday. All day she spent thinking about what was wrong. They seemed like their normal self but some things were just weird. Could it be the hospital? Could the doctors have given them a medicine that had this side effect? She had taken a law class. She could sue them. But how could she prove it?

The two went to dinner as always and she noticed that for nearly a second, LaFontaine seemed like they didn’t know anyone at the table. Like they were all strangers. It was just a second, just a flash, though. Then it was gone. Perry thought she was overthinking this, but before the group parted ways after dinner, she pulled Danny off to the side.

Danny had noticed that over the past day and a half, Perry was looking distraught. Like she was constantly worrying about something.

“What’s up?” she asked.

“I… I don’t know,” Perry wrung her hands, looking around at the ground. How do you even phrase a sentence like this?

“You just pulled me away from the group. You know they’ll notice sooner or later that we’re missing,”

“I know, I know. But… Something’s wrong…” Perry spoke in a hushed tone, as if she was afraid someone was listening in.

“What? What’s wrong?” Danny’s brows knitted together, a big wave of concern washing over her.

“I think something’s wrong with LaFontaine but… but I don’t know what it is,”

Danny grew curious. She crossed her arms. “What do you think is wrong?”

“I don’t know… I understand that LaFontaine wouldn’t remember the date but everyday I have to explain that it’s nearly Halloween,”

“Well that makes sense,”

“That’s the only thing that does! After the makeup test yesterday… they said they didn’t remember being told about it,”

“Wait, they weren’t told about a makeup test?”

“No, that’s the thing. They were told. Twice. Once from their teacher and once from a lab partner,”

“And they forgot?”

“Yeah. They forgot that anyone ever told them and they were so annoyed about it…”

“That… that is weird. Usually LaF is pretty good at staying on top of tests,”

“Yeah, I know. They even studied the night before!”

“Okay, that’s really weird,”

“But that’s not all! Sometimes they seem like they don’t know you guys. We’ve been friends for a while now and…” Perry shook her head. This didn’t make sense. Danny couldn’t think of what to say and Perry continued with her story. She was nearly in tears now. “And… I…  _confessed_  to them. But they don’t remember,”

“Have you told anyone about this?”

“No. I came to you first,” Perry sniffled and wiped away a tear that almost escaped her eye.

“You should have them go to the doctor,”

“But that means that I’ll have to wait until Sunday. I can’t wait that long,”

“I don’t think the doctor will have an opening until then. Just take it, you’re already scheduled to go in for a check up,”

“Maybe if I call about an appointment then I can get them in earlier,”

“Don’t. They can’t do anything shorter than four days away unless you go to the ER but then they jack up the prices if you go there. One of the Summer Society girls had to make an appointment about a pulled hamstring but couldn’t get in until that weekend,”

“The doctor was probably just-”

“She called on a Wednesday,”

Perry sighed. It was three days until their appointment. That would have to do. “Okay… I’ll just wait,”

For the next three days, Perry tried to keep upbeat. She tried to keep things normal. LaFontaine had no idea about what was going on. Hell, they were so surprised on Halloween at all the people that dressed up.

“So many people are dressed up in costumes… You’d think it was Halloween or something,” they said, sitting down with some food with Laura in the caf.

She knitted her brows together and tilted her head a little. “It is Halloween, dude,”

“Wait, seriously? Aw man! I would have worn my costume!”

“Didn’t you notice my costume?” Laura asked, pulling at the white lab coat draped over her.

“Oh… I thought you stole that from the labs or something,”

“No! Guess who I am!”

“Umm…” LaFontaine took a once over of their short friend. She was wearing a white lab coat and had put in white hair chalk in a few strands of her hair. They could tell that she used her makeup to create a more sickly look to her face. “I don’t know?”

Laura groaned. “I’m Dr. Frankenstein! As described in the book,” she said with a bit of pride, grabbing a fork full of food.

\--

The rest of the weekend was alright. There was only one major blip that sent waves of sadness through Perry. On Saturday, she sat on the bed and held her big dry-erase month planner. She erased all of October and wrote November up on top. As she was starting to fill in all the days, LaFontaine walked by and stopped to go back for another look.

“Why are you writing November on your calendar? There’s still a few days left of September,”

Perry sighed sadly but continued her work, explaining (yet again) the situation.

She held onto her sanity until Sunday when LaFontaine had to go back to the doctor. Of course, they didn’t remember but Perry took them anyways and explained on the way. When they got there, the doctor was already waiting for them.

“Susan!” LaFontaine cringed equally at the happy-go-lucky doctor as well as their name. “So glad to have you back! How’ve you been adjusting back to life at Silas?”

“It’s been pretty good,” Perry said for them. They don’t even remember being gone, how could they answer the question?

“That’s good. Have you had any troubles with your neck or ankles? Your wrists?”

“No. They’ve been good. My neck does hurt sometimes if I move it too quickly,” LaFontaine answered, putting a hand on the back of their neck.

“Mhm,” the doctor nodded, scribbling a little bit down. “I’d like to take a few x-rays, if that’s alright,”

The doctor took LaFontaine and Perry to go have some x-rays taken. It didn’t take long but it felt even shorter to Perry who was thinking of how to bring up what’s been going on.

When the three got back to the exam room, the doctor put up the pictures of their neck as well as the ones from last time.

“It’s healed pretty good! See right here,” he circled a place with his finger on the old picture. “It’s healed since then,” he circled the same place on the new picture. There was a small difference but everything looked weird to Perry. She didn’t know what was broken and what wasn’t on the pictures. She wasn’t like LaFontaine who could list off every single one of those bones. “Have you been wearing your brace?”

“Uh, no. Was I suppose to?”

The doctor laughed. “You were but you’ve been healing nicely, so I guess it’s alright. And it doesn’t seem like you’ve been experiencing pain so you don’t need any meds. Looks like we’re done here. Any other questions?”

LaFontaine shook their head, turning to Perry. They expected her to shake her head as well but instead she said something surprising.

“Yes, actually,”

“Oh? What’s wrong?” the doctor frowned a little.

“Well… lately I’ve noticed that…” Perry paused. “Susan… has… well, forgotten… things,”

“Forgotten things? Like what?”

“Well, they’ve just been forgetting a lot of things like the date, the month… I’ve had to explain every day that it was close to Halloween because they didn’t know why there were so many pumpkins and stuff around,”

“Hm…” The doctor grew serious. “I need to do a few more tests with you, Susan. And you too Lola. If that’s okay with you two,”

\--

Laura, Carmilla, and Danny were all gathered in their normal spot: Laura’s room. They watched as Perry paced the floor, trying to keep herself together.

“I-I just… Didn’t know where or-or who to go to about this,” she said, running a hand through her curls.

“What’s going on, Perry?” Laura asked, grabbing her wrist after Perry crossed in front of her for the millionth time since calling them there 20 minutes ago.

Perry sighed and sat down next to Laura. She sniffled. “LaFontaine… Can’t remember,”

“What?” Danny asked.

“W-well I took LaFontaine to the doctor today and he did the check up but before we left I told him about how LaFontaine keeps forgetting things. He did some tests and-and,” Perry paused to try to hold in a tear. “The-the doctor said they have… amnesia. Anterograde, I think is what he called it,”

“Perry…” Laura breathed in disbelief, her arm instantly going around the other’s shoulders and held her close. She was in a Psychology class. She knew what that was.

“Antero- what?” Danny raised an eyebrow. “I get the amnesia part but antero-what?”

Perry saw the blank looks from the other two and tried to keep in more tears long enough to explain. “It’s-It’s like… Well, they can remember stuff from that day… But tomorrow… They’ll forget.  _Everything_ ,” Perry couldn’t hold back anymore and let out a sob.

“It’s like they’re missing their yesterdays,” Laura commented.

“It’s more like they  _have_  no yesterdays,”

“Carm…” Laura sighed, turning to her roommate.

“They don’t have yesterdays anymore. Or any tomorrows,”

“Carm!” Laura nearly hissed. Carmilla was only making things worse.

Perry hiccuped out sobs. “What am I going to do?”

“We’ll… we’ll figure something out,” Laura said, looking from Danny to Carmilla then back again. They looked just about as lost as Perry felt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm always open for requests/prompts over on my [tumblr](http://the--harbor.tumblr.com)!


	9. Chapter 9

It's easy to forget. Perry knew this. She’s seen it everyday. She’s seen it in LaFontaine. She’s seen it in how they walk around without yesterday's problems weighting them down. How they don't remember if they embarrassed themselves the day previous. How they get angry when she tries to remind them of something she said.

Yes, angry. They get so very angry. It's understandable but it hurts. It hurts not only Perry but also LaFontaine.

One day, they got so angry when Perry was trying to remind them of plans for later that day. LaFontaine had made plans for that night instead. Perry shouldn't have pushed, but she didn't know that at the time. So she pushed. She had told them before, three times in fact. It seemed that the more you repeated something each day, the more likely LaFontaine was to remember it.

She had accidentally yelled out "I’ve told you three times already!" She had meant that towards herself, saying that they should have remembered _something_ by now, but LaFontaine just got more angry.

"No you didn't!" They shouted back and having been in this argument for at least 20 minutes, their patience was just about gone. Without really thinking, their fist swung and hit the wall. They weren’t really aiming for anything but they had to do something just to get all of the pent up anger out.

The argument stopped. Perry instantly rushed to them and tried to help their bleeding hand. In the end, she took them to student health services and luckily nothing was broken.

At the end of the day, the two didn't go on either of their planned events. Instead they just stayed in bed, silently apologizing to each other.

The next morning, LaFontaine woke up to a sore hand covered in gauze so they slowly sat up to look at it. They took the gauze off slowly, tearing the trying-to-heal cuts and making them bleed again.

Perry woke up, hearing them make pained noises. She sat up and looked at their hand, feeling apologetic all over again.

"Why is my hand so busted up? It looks like I punched a wall or something," LaFontaine joked.

Perry had a straight face, glancing to the hole in the wall that she had to go get arrangements to fix. LaFontaine followed her gaze and their smile dropped.

"Did I... Did I do that?"

"Yeah..." Perry looked down.

"Hey, Perr..." They cupped her cheek, making her look up at them. "Why are you so sad?"

"Because _I_ made you punch the wall..."

"No you didn't,"

Perry was a bit hesitant to argue but she thought a little before she spoke. "I did. You don't remember but I made you angry,"

"Why don't I remember? I'd know if I got angry,"

Perry looked sadly into their eyes and cupped their cheek, mirroring what they were doing to her. "You don't remember because you have amnesia,"

LaFontaine smiled a little, thinking it was a joke at first, but after seeing Perry's serious expression they knew it had to be true. Their smile dropped in time with their hand.

"I do?"

"Yeah..." Perry's hand fell from their face.

"How long?"

"Well, you were in a car crash on September 26th,"

"But... That's today..."

"No, sweetie. That was more than a month ago,"

"A month?" LaFontaine was surprised to hear that long had gone past.

Perry nodded sadly. "You were in a coma for a week after the accident. Then you stayed in the hospital for three weeks until your casts came off," Her words were heavy in the air, the memories coming back to plague her mind. The endless worry, the constant fear that while she was in class they had somehow died, that something would go wrong and they’d be paralyzed forever...

"So... I was out of school for a whole month?"

"Yes..."

LaFontaine resituated, sitting up more and crossing their legs. "If I was gone for a month, did you take care of yourself?"

Perry smiled at how concerned they were. "I was fine. Danny, Laura, and surprisingly Carmilla were a big help," LaFontaine grew a look of confusion. "Do you remember who they are?"

"I remember…” their eyes darted around as they went through their memories. “Laura... I think... Danny seems familiar but I don't know who Carmilla is,"

Perry nodded and took out her phone. She scrolled through a few things and showed them pictures of the three. It didn't take long for them to recognize Danny and Laura but it took a few seconds for them to remember Carmilla. Then again, that might have also been that her picture was a little blurry and she was flipping off the camera.

"What day is it?" LaFontaine asked softly after a minute or so of silence, letting all the information sink in.

"November 15th,"

"November 15th..." They echoed under their breath in disbelief. Their eyes darted to Perry's wall calendar and sighed. "I guess I really do have amnesia..."

"Yeah..." Perry sighed a little. "But there's one more thing that you forgot," she smiled a little, her cheeks flushing pink. LaFontaine was a little curious by Perry's reaction but let her continue. Perry brought her hand back up to LaFontaine's cheek and she connected their lips gently. She stayed for a second or two, enjoying the swelling inside her chest, before pulling away and looking into their eyes. "I love you,"

That's how most of Perry's mornings were now. Some days were easier to get LaFontaine to understand and some were so difficult that she had to bring in Laura and Carmilla to help explain. Once, Danny had to come in to keep LaFontaine's anger at bay.

One day towards the end of November, LaFontaine had come back to the dorm with writing on their arm. It was in pen, so Perry wasn't too angry. She had seen them have writing on their hands before, but never their arm.

"What's that for?" She asked, nodding a little to the words.

"Huh?" They looked down at their arm. "Oh, I wrote down something I wanted to remember,"

"Couldn't you have written that down just as well on your hands?"

"I would’ve but they were full," LaFontaine shrugged.

"Full?" Perry questioned, looking down at their hands. LaFontaine was right. Their hands were full. The backs of their palms were covered in words and she figured the other side was the same way.

It seemed like a better method than their last. Before, they had carried a notebook everywhere and wrote down important things. At first. After a while, they started to write down everything. Every. Little. Thing. But the trouble with that was they kept leaving it everywhere. And it got filled up quickly.

"I guess it's better than your notebook," Perry shrugged, turning back to the cocoa she was making.

LaFontaine kept up their writing on their arm and would wipe away the things they didn't need anymore. But the things they thought they didn't need anymore was just about everything. Every morning they would go to wash their arms off because they didn't know who wrote on their arms or what it all meant. Perry had to stop them each time so they would have something to help them through their day.

This became their routine until December. Finals were coming up and LaFontaine started to abbreviate and not write in full sentences on their arms. When Perry, or anyone really, would question about the words on their arms LaFontaine would get really angry. They didn't know what the notes meant and everything was important now so the sentences ran into and over each other. It was a big confusing mess.

LaFontaine started to get so angry at people accusing them of writing the words and assuming that they understood what each one meant. But they _didn’t._ They didn’t know who was writing on their arms. They didn’t know what they meant. Each thing ran into something else or was scribbled so tiny that it was impossible to read. _They. Didn’t. Know._ But still, people kept asking. During one particularly bad rage, they had wildly scratched at their skin. If people stopped them from trying to wash it off, then they might as well just tear off the skin. Perry wasn’t strong enough to stop LaFontaine and Danny couldn't come quick enough. By the time she got there, LaFontaine had many long scratches all over their arms and many, many more smaller ones.

"I think we need a new method," Perry sighed, running her hand through her hair. She was sitting on Danny's bed in the lodge. The SS girls liked having Perry over because she would often bake or better yet, clean. "It worked pretty good at first but now it's probably the worst thing,"

"I don't know what else," Danny shrugged.

Perry glanced around the athlete's room. It was a bit messy from the neglect of studying for finals and having a few big games happening the past week. Her desk was the source of the mess and it seemed to radiate outward. Even the walls were loaded with sticky notes with little things written on them. They covered almost all the spots on the walls over Danny's bed and her desk.

A smile tugged at Perry’s lips the more she looked around. "I have an idea,"

\--

When Perry came back, LaFontaine was sitting at their desk and trying to scribble down notes on their arm that wasn’t cut as well as on their notebook. They just didn't have enough arm space to make everything fit. Perry was beginning to think their skin would never be the same tint again.

"I'm back," Perry called into the room when she returned.

"Hey Perr," LaFontaine said, not looking up and without much emotion.

"Hope I wasn't gone too long," she took off her shoes, placing them neatly in their spot.

"I've had my head in this book, time flew by,"

Perry shuffled her feet a little. "Um... I have something for you,"

"Oh?" LaFontaine still wasn't looking up so Perry sighed a little.

"You seem busy. I'll leave you alone," she stated then went to her bed, grabbing a book to read.

\--

LaFontaine woke up to an empty bed. Doing their usual groan-and-roll technique, they got out of bed. As they stood up they noticed something on top of their desk. Or rather, on top of their textbook. Early morning curiosity got the better of them and they went to go check it out.

On it was a bright neon orange sticky note with loopy, neat handwriting. They recognized it but didn't know how.

_"You have a test in three days. Don't forget to study!"_

A test? They didn't remember about having a test so they turned to the big dry erase calendar of Perry's. Sure enough, there was a date that said "LaFontaine's test" in the same loopy handwriting as on the note. That must be Perry's handwriting.

It was too early in the morning for anymore thinking so LaFontaine turned to their dresser and took out their clothes. After dressing themselves and brushing their teeth, they noticed more sticky notes. Two were on either side of a plate of food that still looked semi warm.

The one on the right read:

_"Don't forget to eat breakfast!"_

LaFontaine cracked a smile and grabbed the fork next to the plate. Their eyes drifted to the one on the left.

_"Sorry I'm MIA this morning but I have a presentation to work on with some people from my class. See you later!_   
_-Perry"_

LaFontaine grinned a little at the note, letting their fingers gently brush over it. Next to the sticky note was nearly a full stack and a pen lying on top.

_"Thought these would be more efficient than your arms"_

\--

"This is probably going to be incredibly rude but... What's it like?" Danny asked softly. They were in the caf for an unusual lunch that Perry had because of a class that ended early. The two would have cooked but Perry didn't have enough time before her next class to do that.

"What's what like?" She questioned, taking a bite of her food.

"Being with someone who doesn't remember," Danny said a little sheepishly. She knew she should ask it but the question was something that’s been on her mind since LaFontaine was diagnosed. Perry stopped chewing the bite in her mouth for a second, the weight of the question hitting her. She swallowed, looking down. "I-I'm sorry, I shouldn't've-”

“No…” Perry interrupted as her head raised back up to face Danny. “It’s okay. I was just thinking of how to describe it…” Her eyes glanced around the room to think. “It’s like… Well… It’s kind of cool, really. It’s like… Their raw self every morning. They don’t remember their mistakes or embarrassments anymore. They’re almost 100% pure personality. And when they see you for the first time everyday…” Perry smiled softly, almost distantly. “It’s like you’ve been gone for weeks… And… They’re so happy to see you,”

Normally, she wouldn’t leave LaFontaine in the mornings but with the new sticky note method they had adapted to, Perry could leave a bunch of sticky notes before leaving to go make breakfast. She loved coming back and them instantly pulling her into a hug because they didn’t remember that she had kissed them goodnight just the night before.

“Oh, wow,” Danny was amazed. She thought it would have been worse, seeing as how she got called into the room when LaFontaine was angry. “Is… Is there any…” She paused to find a word. “Down side?” Even though Danny had seen the down side, that was only when she was called in. She didn’t know about what emotions went on behind the scenes.

“Well…” The distant smile faded and Perry’s gaze dropped again. “They know they’re forgetting, if you tell them. Then they have this… constant need, almost OCD, to document _everything._ They write everything down then when you ask them about it the next day… they get so angry because… they never wrote that,” Perry shrugged her shoulders a little.

“So… It’s like they’re stuck on repeat,”

“Basically. Always starting from the same place… You can only get so far like that…” Perry’s words were heavy again, the worries washing over her again.

The two sat in silence for a while. “Have you told LaF about… how you feel?”

Perry scoffed a little. “I kiss them every morning and every night,”

“But they don’t remember?”

“No…” Perry shook her head. Danny didn’t say anything, the weight of Perry’s words seemed to stop the conversation. “But… It’s kind of nice…” Danny looked up, a bit confused. Perry looked into her eyes, smiling a little. “I get to watch them fall in love everyday,”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm always open for requests/prompts over on my [tumblr](http://the--harbor.tumblr.com)!


	10. Chapter 10

The usual late morning/early afternoon sunshine made the lazy biologist stirr. With a glance at the clock, they groaned. They had meant to wake up earlier, vaguely remembering the alarm ringing this morning. Why had they rolled over? They knew they would go back to sleep if that happened. It was just so comfy and warm and smelt like Perry.

LaFontaine opened their eyes again, staring at the empty pillow beside their head. On top of it was a sticky note. With a small, curious frown, they propped themselves up on their elbows and leaned over to read it.

_ “Good morning! Or afternoon. Whenever you wake up.   
You won’t remember last night. Or yesterday. I’m not even sure you’ll remember me” _

Who wrote this?

They spent a few seconds staring at the letters and the way they looped together so perfectly. It seemed so familiar... Where did they know the writing from?

When they tried to lay back down, their gaze found another sticky note on the wall just above the pillow. They scooted closer to read it.

_ “Let me help you remember.   
My name is Lola but you call me Perry. We’ve been friends since we were five, but I’ve loved you since we were 12” _

A small butterfly flickered in their stomach. Perry? Perry loved them? This had to be a prank…

They tried to push the notes out of their mind and got up. A flash of orange caught their eye on the headboard of the bed.

_ “This is where we had our first kiss” _

LaFontaine’s eyes widened a little. They had kissed Perry? They would’ve remembered had they kissed Perry. LaFontaine looked around the room spotting three more sticky notes. They walked to the closest two that happened to be right next to each other up on the wall.

The left most read:

_ “This is where I told you I loved you” _

And next to it was a similar one that read:

_ “This is where you told me you loved me” _

LaFontaine couldn’t stop the smile that tugged at their lips and kept reading over the two sticky notes. On both of them was a little heart in the top left corner. They could tell Perry took time to make these as neat as she possibly could. This had to be true. She wouldn’t have taken such care in them if it wasn’t.

They turned to the last sticky note on the door.

_ “You have anterograde amnesia. You can’t remember but use these post-it notes to help you.   
Don’t use your arms anymore. Unless it’s really important” _

Their arms? LaFontaine glanced down and saw many long scabs covering their arms.

\--

“I got it!” shouted Laura as the door opened intrusively to Perry’s room. The door swung open fast and out of Laura’s grip, making it hit the wall with a loud  _ BANG! _

Perry nearly jumped out of her skin, managing to drop a glass half full of water into the sink and two little pills on the ground. She placed a hand over her chest, feeling the adrenaline spreading through her body.

“Goodness gracious, Laura!” she gripped the counter with her other hand.

“S-Sorry,” Laura laughed as she shut the door.

“You got what?” Perry took a deep breath and picked up the glass to fill it again.

“I got an idea to help LaF remember who we are!” Laura rushed to the bed and sat down, quickly shrugging off her far-too-heavy backpack to rummage around in it.

“Really?” Perry reached down and grabbed the pills before tossing them and grabbing more.

“Yeah! I got the idea in the middle of my math class and I rushed over as soon as I could!” She pulled out a few books to scan over before putting them back.

“You should really organize that better,” Perry hushed motherly, tipping the glass back against her lips.

“Found it!” Laura said, pulling out a wide, dark brown book. There was nothing on the front or sides, making it look very plain.

“What is that?”

“It’s a scrapbook! You said that LaF doesn’t tell who we are unless they see us. So, we just take pictures of everyone and put it in here,” Laura opened the book and flipped through the empty pages. “Each page could be dedicated to someone,”

“That’s actually a really good idea,”

“I thought it would be better than trying to explain what’s wrong each morning,” Laura closed the book, looking up sympathetically to Perry.

Perry pierced her lips together then looked down a little. “Thanks,” She took another swallow of the water then put the pills in her mouth, washing them down with yet another swallow.

“What’s with the medicine?” Laura asked, closing her backpack.

“Oh, just a headache. It’s a really bad one and keeps coming back,”

“I’ve got some migraine pills if you think that’ll help,”

“Oh, no. Those are yours I can grab more from the campus store,”

”Okay… Hey, let’s go see if Danny’s got a camera!”

\--

Perry followed Laura around the whole campus to find people LaFontaine would interact with in a day. They first took pictures of Danny and Carmilla then faded out to their lab partners and the people in the bio club, or whatever they call themselves, that followed them around but could never get LaFontaine to join.

“Okay, time for the last pictures,” Laura said, walking into her room as Perry followed a few steps behind sifting through notes and things people wrote down about themselves.

“Huh?”

“You and me. Gotta have us too,”

Perry nodded and took the camera from Laura, neatly setting down the stack of papers first. She quickly scanned it to get all the buttons down. There were much too many in Perry’s opinion but she wasn’t a photographer. Maybe they had some type of function that she didn’t know about.

Laura fingered through a few strands of stray hair then fixed her shirt. “Okay, ready,” She said smiling, all ready for Perry to take the picture.

Perry bit her lower lip slightly, frowning in concentration, and tried to position Laura in the frame correctly. She took a few pictures, predicting that some of them would be blurry.

“Okay, your turn!” Laura smiled and took the camera.

Perry fixed her turtleneck then touched her hair. “Do you think I should have my hair down?”

“No, it looks fine,”

“But what if they don’t recognize me without my hair down?”

“Oh, please. Your hair just screams Perry,” Laura lifted the camera and readied for a picture. “Smile!”

\--

It wasn’t for about a week that Laura got the pictures printed. It was only a week because of all the finals that were happening. The entire student body seemed like zombies trying to stay human by downing as much caffeine as physically possible. Even the school seemed to be fueled by caffeine.

Perry and LaFontaine had many late nights to study and very short, deep naps in between classes. LaFontaine had assured Perry that sleep deprivation had about a week or two holding period that you could make it up. Without as much sleep as usual, Perry was a little scattered and didn’t even bother with the mess of sticky notes of all colors scattered all over the walls.

Thankfully, finals week ended quickly. Perry and LaFontaine spent nearly all day after the last of their finals sleeping in bed.

It was the day before winter break when Laura gave Perry the pictures.

“Are you sure you won’t come with us?” Laura asked, handing Perry the small stack of pictures.

“Yeah… I mean… I’d like to take LaFontaine home. Family would be nice at this point…” Perry idly flipped through a few of the photos, faintly smiling at the people she knew.

“Yeah…” Laura rubbed her hands on her jeans in the growing silence filtering through the room. “... Well, I’m gonna go back to packing,”

“Okay. We need to finish as well,”

\--

LaFontaine seemed to remember Perry’s parents which made Perry very happy that she didn’t have to explain every day who her parents were. She did still have to explain where they were when they woke up. It took a few days to gather all the needed pictures from the internet, because for some reason there was nearly nothing about Silas, and created a page in the book about Silas.

Perry waited until after the holidays to give LaFontaine the scrapbook.

“What’s this? I thought all the gift giving was over,” they said, taking the book and feeling the cover gently.

“I thought this might help you remember,” Perry smiled softly, opening the cover.

_ “Here’s a book of people you know but might not be able to remember.   
You have anterograde amnesia because of an accident you had on September 26th, 2014” _

They flipped through the pages. LaFontaine smiled. The first four were of Perry, Laura, Danny, and Carmilla respectfully. They chuckled a little when they saw all the blurry pictures of her, especially of the one in the corner of Carmilla’s page of her flipping the camera off.

“You got everybody,” they breathed, flipping through and skimming the information about each person.

“Well, we tried,” Perry shrugged. “I can’t actually take credit for this. It was Laura’s idea,”

“Even so, thank you,” LaFontaine hesitantly kissed Perry, a blush spreading across their cheeks.

\--

The next morning, Perry kissed LaFontaine gently, making them stirr. She smiled then got up, going to get dressed. LaFontaine sat up with a groan, looking around. They were slightly confused as to where they were for a moment before remembering the room they had spent most of their childhood in. Their eyes shifted to the clock and they groaned, laying back down.

“Why is it so early?” they complained into the pillow.

Perry smiled. “Because it’s morning. You don’t have to get up now. I’m just going downstairs to make some breakfast,”

“Mmm…” LaFontaine mumbled, already halfway asleep again.

“What me to bring you some?” Perry laughed a little, going over and smoothing a few strands of hair on LaFontaine’s head.

“Mmm,”

She took that as a yes and went downstairs. Before she made breakfast, she took some medicine to ease the throbbing pain starting in her head.

Making breakfast didn’t take long and she took up two plates for herself and LaFontaine.

“I’m back,” she called into the room, trying to balance the plates on one arm as she opened and closed the door.

She smiled as she heard a soft snore. LaFontaine was really not up for waking up today. Perry put their plate of food next to the scrapbook and sat down in front of the bed, flipping on the tv to watch some crappy show that happened to be on.

By the time she had finished eating, LaFontaine still wasn’t awake. Perry decided it was time to just wake them up or their breakfast was going to be cold. She stood up and set her plate down on an empty spot on her dresser. LaFontaine rolled over into their back, their arm thrown across the mattress. Is this what they did all the time when Perry wasn’t there?

She walked up to the bed and placed a knee on one side of their legs. Perry swung her other leg to the other side so she was resting just about LaFontaine’s knees. She leaned forward and placed a small trail soft kisses on their cheek.

“LaFontaine,” she called softly. They stirred a little but didn’t seem to be any less asleep. Perry laughed a little and kissed their lips gently until she felt them move. She pulled away, still hovering very close to their face with a small grin. “Time to wake up, sweetie. Your breakfast is getting cold,”

LaFontaine opened their eyes and quickly, a deep blush colored their face. “Perr?”

“Come on and eat your breakfast,” Perry kissed their cheek quickly then climbed off the bed.

LaFontaine was a little awkward that morning around Perry until they read the scrapbook. The two spent the rest of the morning watching the tv close to each other. Perry was leaning on LaFontaine’s shoulder while they were internally arguing with themselves debating whether or not to put an arm around her shoulders.

“Hey, Perr?” they asked around noon, both of them getting bored by the show they were watching.

“Yes?”

“Are we… dating?” they asked softly, not looking at Perry but obviously embarrassed at asking the question.

Perry turned to look at them. She thought it over for a few moments. Never had the two actually agreed on dating but it was kind of a given.

“Yes,” she said finally, a big grin growing on her face that she couldn’t really shake. Her chest swelled a little at admitting it out loud but she liked it. She made a mental note to add ‘your girlfriend’ to her page in the scrapbook. “Why do you ask?”

“Do you wanna go out tonight?” they turned to her with a small, crooked smile.

“Tonight? But it’s New Year’s Eve today,”

“Is it? What year is it gonna be?”

“2015,”

“But still. Let’s go out,”

“We kind of have plans,”

“Oh?” LaFontaine raised a brow.

“Laura invited us to her house. We’re probably going to stay there until it’s time to go back to Silas,”

“We’re gonna go stay with L? Nice! When do we leave?”

“In about an hour,”

“When were you planning on telling me this?”

“In about an hour,” Perry chuckled a little.

“Goodness, Perr. You’re suppose to be the organized one,” LaFontaine placed a hesitant kiss on Perry’s cheek.

\--

Perry had drove them to Laura’s. She was a bit surprised to see that Carmilla was staying with her as well. LaFontaine seemed more than happy at getting to stay with their friends during the New Years celebrations.

“Is Danny coming?” Perry asked, unpacking a few platters of food. A few her parents had made and a few she had thrown together quickly.

“The beanstalk’s coming?” Carmilla asked from across the room, looking up from a book that she always seemed to be reading. Perry didn’t like the way she was sitting in the chair but she didn’t need any of Carmilla’s snarky comments.

“No,” Laura shot a glare at Carmilla, gaining a shrug in return before the dark haired girl turned back to her book. “She’s not coming,”

“Why not?”

“Me and her have kind of…” Laura shifted. “Had a few troubles…”

Carmilla scoffed from across the room and Laura shot her another glare.

“Troubles? Why? What happened? You can always talk to me, you know,”

“Yeah, I know, Perry. Maybe later. Carmilla’s being a little snippy today,”

Regardless that they were missing a certain tall member of their friends, the four still had a good New Year’s Eve. At midnight LaFontaine had kissed Perry. It didn’t last as long as LaFontaine would have wanted it to but Perry didn’t like showing a lot of affection in front of other’s.

When they pulled away, Perry noticed Laura and Carmilla jump back a bit from each other. They both looked away from the other and their faces were colored pink. She narrowed her eyes a little but said nothing. Something was weird between those two.

The next day when they were all hanging out in Laura’s basement and finishing the rest of the food on the platters, Perry remembered that their classes would start soon.

“Um, Laura?” she started to gain attention from her position on the couch.

“Yeah, Perry?” Laura turned around with a smile and a slight giggle from the joke that LaFontaine had just told, happily sitting on the floor.

“How are we getting back to Silas?”

“We drive?” Laura shrugged.

“Are we gonna start a caravan?” LaFontaine smiled a little, liking the idea of hooking up some CV radios in each of the cars to communicate. “Danny could drive back with us,”

“She went with the Summer Society girls to a cabin somewhere. They’ll probably be caravaning back together,”

“I guess driving would be okay but where’s the fun in that?” LaFontaine picked at the carpet absentmindedly. “We’d have to be split then,”

“Oh, yeah. That’d suck,” Laura looked around the room, trying to think.

“We could hike,” Carmilla sarcastically added.

Laura and LaFontaine shared a look and a little shrug before shifting their attention to Perry then to Carmilla. Carmilla’s expression dropped.

“Laura, no,”

Perry couldn’t concentrate on the rest of the conversation. Her head hurt too much. She got up as LaFontaine and Laura started entertaining the thought of hiking. Perry shuffled to the guest room that her and LaFontaine were sharing to get her medicine. Her vision was getting blurry and everything seemed to be moving on it’s own. She quickly reached her pills and poured the last few into her shaking hands. She didn’t count how many she took or anything, she just tilted her head back and took them dry.

The pain was just too much. It had been a gentle throb most of the day but it had suddenly gotten so much worse. She felt light headed and dizzy.

“Hey, Perr! Can we go hiking back to Silas?” someone had asked  _ much _ too loudly into the room.

“Yeah, yeah. Okay,” she replied, not even looking to see who it was.

Perry looked down at the bottle in her hands. She was out of pills now. She’d have to stop and grab some more from a gas station or something.

\--

Despite her protests, Carmilla had somehow gotten conned into hiking it to Silas. The four had gotten desperately lost in the mountains and without food but with a lot of bear spray that no one needed, courtesy of Laura’s dad.

Perry was pretty much a dead weight to the group because she forgot to buy some more pills for her migraines. Most times she felt like collapsing from the pain but they were hiking. She had to keep up. Carmilla was getting annoyed at how often they were stopping to rest but said nothing. It wasn’t Perry’s fault that her vision would get all blurry or her head would get so light she felt like nothing was under her.

Those few days were the toughest Perry had ever faced. Luckily, they had made it back to Silas within a week. They had stopped in an old village and had taken shelter in a bakery. No one really wanted to talk about that. But at least they had eaten some real food (if cookies and cake count as real food) and clean water.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm always open for requests/prompts over on my [tumblr](http://the--harbor.tumblr.com)!


	11. Chapter 11

This class couldn't have been anymore boring. Half the kids were asleep and the other half were texting or tweeting or whatever they do. The teacher even looked like he was bored at his own lecture.

LaFontaine sent a text to Laura about how boring this class was today in an attempt to stay awake. She usually texts back, even if she has class but not this time. Maybe she was presenting on that big book she rented from the library. They started to fall asleep again so they sent a text to Perry.

_"Hey Perr. How're you feeling?"_

Ever since they had gotten back to Silas from their impromptu hiking expedition, LaFontaine's made Perry rest or kept close tabs on her so she was feeling alright. She had come close several times to passing out on their way home through the mountains and LaFontaine was worried. They had left themself a note, which Perry had destroyed this morning, saying what had happened and had made them worry extensively. The first day that classes started, LaFontaine didn't even let her leave the room.

_"I'm okay, LaFontaine. You don't have to worry anymore,"_

_"Yes I do,"_

_"Wait, aren't you in class?"_

LaFontaine straightened their back a little.

_"... Maybe,"_

_"Pay attention!!!"_

LaFontaine sighed and pulled out a notebook to start jotting things down. They didn't want to fall asleep. They forget things when they fall asleep.

\--

“I’m going!!” Perry shouted excitedly, holding a piece of paper as she ran into Laura’s room. Like usual, everyone was there.

“Where ya goin’, Shirley?” Carmilla raised an eyebrow, turning to look at the excited ginger.

“Germany! Over spring break!”

“You passed?” LaFontaine stood up, a grin instantly spreading over their face. The strongest thing that they remember is the endless nights that Perry sacrificed sleep to stay up and study for that test. They knew how much it meant to her. For three months, that’s all she would talk about non-stop.

“Yes! I didn’t think I would, but I got it! I did it!!” Perry laughed.

LaFontaine got a bit too excited and picked her up, spun her around once, then set her down just to plant a kiss on the grinning colored lips.

“Ahem,” Danny cleared her throat after a few seconds, the lovebirds paying them no mind. “Ahem!” She tried again, louder this time. It still didn’t work.

The two only pulled away after the fifth try.

“Now that  _that’s_ over,” Laura turned back to her computer.

Perry widened her eyes. How in the world could she forget that Laura was doing her web… thing? She just kissed LaFontaine in front of Laura’s audience.

“Hey, Perr. You okay?” LaFontaine asked lowly, letting Laura do her thing with the camera.

“Y-Yeah. Y-you know… nothing’s better than kissing in front of the whole internet,” Perry muttered weakly.

“This calls for celebration but first, Perr, let’s get you back to the room. You look like you’re gonna pass out,”

\--

"There's  _more_?" Perry was tired. LaFontaine had dragged her around all night on an impromptu date. It was probably one of the best nights of Perry's life.

LaFontaine had been waiting outside of her last class with a rose, wearing a very dapper outfit with one of the bow ties Perry liked all topped off with that bashful, crooked smile the she loved so much. They brought her back to their dorm room and she got dressed in her favorite dress. When she came back out, LaFontaine gave her a beautiful new necklace before they went out to that fancy restaurant Perry had always wanted to visit, which was better than she had hoped. After that, they sat out on top of the library as the sunset faded away. Now, as the moon and stars twinkled above them, LaFontaine was dragging Perry back to their dorm.

"'Mayybe," they smiled largely. Even though they felt as though they couldn't breathe, the smile never left their face.

"What else could there possibly be?" Perry laughed a little when her hand was finally free from LaFontaine's.

"Oh, nothing special," LaFontaine grinned, unlocking the door. They took a deep breath, trying to calm their racing heart.

The two stepped into the room and Perry rolled her eyes at how cheesy the sight was.

"Flower petals and candles?" She turned to LaFontaine. "Did- Did Laura and Danny do this?"

"Yeah..." LaFontaine shoved their hands in their pockets, kicking the floor a little. “I picked out all the flowers and the candles and-”

"Oh, sweetie," Perry kissed their lips quickly before turning to take off her shoes. "You didn't have to do all this,"

"No... But I wanted to,"

The rest of that night was relaxing. After a four course meal and watching the sunset, they changed into their pajamas and finished the night off with Perry's favorite movie.

This was perfect. This is how it should be. Perry half-laying, almost asleep, on LaFontaine with a bowl of half-eaten popcorn sitting next to them because Perry had always liked the taste of popcorn the next morning or even the next night. LaFontaine traced small little circles on Perry’s shoulder. They had seen this movie so many times they could say every line from start to finish with no problem. Their attention wasn’t even on the movie anyways. They kept their eyes glued on Perry as she was falling asleep. Their eyelids were getting heavy too but they were in an all out war with falling asleep right now.

With a small start, their head snapped up. LaFontaine was starting to panic. They were falling asleep.

“LaFontaine…?” Perry murmured as the end song played.

“Mmmm?” LaFontaine hummed lowly, trying to calm themselves down. Also, Perry was kind of asleep. She needed to get her sleep.

“Your heart…” Perry sighed sleepily. “It’s beating so fast…”

“I don’t want to fall asleep,” LaFontaine frowned when their voice cracked. They didn’t want this to be emotional but the familiar sting was growing in the back of their throat. Tears were on their way.

Perry moved slowly, lifting her shoulders off the warm body underneath. “Honey… You need-”

“I don’t want to fall asleep,” LaFontaine repeated, trying to keep a stone face.

“Why not?” Her hand slowly smoothed out a wrinkle on their tank top before smoothing out a few strains of their hair.

“Because I forget things when I fall asleep,”

Perry stopped and withdrew her hand a bit. Her lips parted in surprise. “LaFon-”

“I want to remember…” LaFontaine’s eyes locked onto Perry’s through the dark. “I want to remember this night. I want to remember the necklace I gave you. I want to remember how beautiful you looked tonight. I want to remember-” The sting was too strong and a tear was threatening to fall. “I want to remember how much I love you,”

Perry’s heart dropped. That’s why there were special pink sticky notes on the walls. That’s why they hadn’t slept in days. In the silence, Perry could see LaFontaine’s eyes fighting to keep the tears in as well as trying to stay open. She reached out and her thumb wiped away the runaway tear.

“You need to sleep eventually,”

“Not necessarily,” LaFontaine lifted their shoulders up, propping themselves up with their elbows. “The human body can stay awake for 10 days. Well… once it gets to 11, it gets deadly but, I can figure a way around that. But for right now, we need to go do something. I don’t want to sleep,” They quickly spoke then tried to get up.

Perry sat up, catching them before they got out of bed. “LaFontaine, no. This is ridiculous. I get that you don’t want to sleep but-”

“No. You  _don’t_ ,” LaFontaine locked eyes with Perry again, tears never leaving their spot. “I  _forget. Everything. Every morning_. I can’t tell you what it’s like to wake up then realize that you suddenly skipped ahead 5 months. I can’t tell you what it’s like to look through all the  _freaking_ sticky notes each morning and trying to gather all the information I’ve forgotten. Perry, don’t even  _try_ to say you get it.  _You don’t_ ,” A sob escaped. “I’m broken,”

\--

Perry was glad that they wouldn’t remember what happened the next morning. After they had cried themselves to sleep, she got up and looked at the pink sticky notes. They had ideas of visiting the restaurant, getting the necklace (the exact one she had pointed out two months ago), and planning on setting candles and flower petals around the room. She sat down and put her head in her hands. LaFontaine couldn’t resort to staying awake for days on end because they didn’t want to fall asleep. She sighed. This was life now. It wasn’t perfect. It couldn’t be.

Her gaze caught the word “Germany” on a sticky note in a slightly opened drawer on LaFontaine’s desk. Curiosity got the better of her and she opened it. The note said _“Perr passed the test! She’s going to Germany over spring break! - February 25th, 2015”_  February 25th… That was yesturday. The whole drawer was filled with sticky notes that all had something that Perry had once said or did, a date, and a little note underneath that said  _“Perry things are important. Remember this!”_

\--

“LaFontaine, I don’t want to go,” Perry clutched the pillow closer, her vision already blurry.

“Oh, come on. It’s only three doors down!” LaFontaine sat down on the bed next to her.

“LaFontaine. My head hurts. I don’t want to go,” Perry spoke a bit harshly but this headache was really bad. It was the worst she’s had since they had started and LaFontaine had been complaining about this for the past 10 minutes. She couldn’t take much more. At least in Laura’s room she could just clean the window or the bathroom and the noise wouldn’t be so much.

“Then take some medicine!” LaFontaine reached for the less-than-half-full bottle of pills.

“Ugh, you know what, fine,” Perry took the bottle from LaFontaine as they got up and hurried out of the room.

As Perry stood, the whole room spun. With a soft curse, Perry steadied herself and hobbled to the sink. Her knees were growing weak as the water filled the not-so-clean glass. Perry didn’t care. She just wanted this to  _go away_.

She took the pills then took a few deep breaths as her vision cleared. The trip to Laura’s room, only three doors to the right, was an easy trip on a normal day but now she could barely walk at a normal human speed without feeling dizzy. But, she just couldn’t say no to LaFontaine. Not forever at least.

The pills started to kick in as she crossed the threshold of Laura’s room. The girls were preoccupied with that Zeta boy, whatever his name is, and a really old book that Perry was sure they shouldn’t even have but she was in no position to argue. She might as well just make everyone drinks while the medicine was trying to go into full effect. But full effect never came.

Perry was standing, or rather wobbling, in the corner of Laura’s room while everyone else were hanging out and having a good time. Her brain is pounding so hard against her skull that it hurts. Tears well in her eyes and there’s no doubt in her mind that her knees are having earthquakes all their own. She holds onto the counter for support, otherwise she probably would have fallen.

The pills only worked, if you could say that, for the first 10 minutes of walking into Laura’s room before Perry was feeling like her headache was worse than it had been before. Now, her vision was starting to get fuzzy again. She grabbed her head as tears ran down her face. It hurt so bad, but she didn’t want to ruin everyone’s fun so she kept quiet. Her hands shook as she tried to pick up a cup. It was too difficult so she poured more migraine pills in her hand. She didn’t care how many. She could barely see them anyway. This pain needed to go away.  _Now_. Wiping away the tears, she took a deep breath.

She had ended up taking most of the pills she had (which wasn’t much since the pills were so big) then finished her work on the drinks. The medicine helped long enough to hand out drinks to everyone. When she went back to get snacks, her knees nearly gave out. She gripped onto the counter, barely able to support herself. How was no one noticing this? Perry turned towards the others and was about to say something when she realized, they weren’t speaking english. They were speaking some other language. She could see their lips moving and could hear that they were speaking but it sounded like an alien language. Her vision began to grow spotty.

Something was wrong. Very wrong.

“Goordadk?” Danny said, looking at Perry. Perry was breathing heavily now, panicking and finding it almost too hard to concentrate and keep herself up. “Goordadk, eyhndaa ouuns wenntlp?”

Everyone else looked at her. She opened her mouth to ask what was wrong but just then, her vision gave out. Then her body collapsed to the floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm always open for requests/prompts over on my [tumblr](http://the--harbor.tumblr.com)!


	12. Chapter 12

A steady pulsing beep slowly reached her ears. It seemed to get louder and louder. It was so annoying. Someone needs to shut it off. Although, it sounded very familiar...

She wanted to roll over, to cover her face from the light and continue the rest her body craved. But this wasn't normal rest. Her body didn't feel the lazy type of relaxed when she slept. Her limbs felt heavy, pained even. Her chest felt weird, almost like it was too thick for her internal organs to fit right, and her heart felt like it was being restricted from beating. What was this?

A strange kind of awareness came to her nose and arm. There was something up her nostrils and something in her arm. The sudden awareness sent a little chill up to the back of her neck. She had to open her eyes. What was going on? She didn't remember falling asleep.

Her eyelids felt like cement had sealed them shut. She didn't have enough energy to do much but after a lot of struggling, her eyelids parted and the harsh light hit her face.

The hospital?

\--

LaFontaine had been like a statue for the past two hours, just staring at the door that shielded Perry from the rest of the world. From them. They had been sitting in a waiting room ever since the whole group had arrived at the hospital. One second, everything's fine and everyone’s having fun in Laura's room then the next thing they knew... Perry was as pale as the wall and she just... dropped to the floor. The next few minutes were a blur but they do remember the paramedics dragging Perry away and the ride inside the ambulance.

It was their fault. They had pushed her to come to Laura's room when all she wanted to was lay down and sleep away the headache. Could a headache do this?

LaFontaine was trapped in their mind. Perry was hurt. Perry was hurt. Would they remember that later? Quickly, they pulled out a pen from their back pocket and wrote on their arm "Perry's hurt".

They didn't know if she was okay. No one did. The doctors hadn't let any of them in ever since they wheeled her away and the nurse threatened to restrain them for trying to fight to see Perry. Luckily Danny and Laura were there to calm them down enough to sit in a chair. And that's where they've been ever since then. Well, other then getting up to ask if they can go see Perry every twenty minutes.

Carmilla's shown up and has been trying to console Laura. Danny and Kirsch were sitting next to each other, each wanting to say something but neither thinking anything was good enough.

LaFontaine was staring at Perry's door. She was laying behind that door. Was she awake? Was she still passed out? They needed to know. They needed to know before they forgot. The nurse was just sitting doing some paperwork at the nurses station only a few meters away. With a sigh, they gathered enough strength to stand and shuffle to the nurses station.

“Um…”

“I don’t know if you can go see her, sit down and I will check in a few minutes,” The nurse said before LaFontaine could get another word out.

“But you said that 20 and half minutes ago!”

The nurse sighed, letting her head hang for a second before looking up to meet their gaze. “You won’t stop bugging me until you go see her, will you?” LaFontaine just shook their head and earned another sigh from the nurse. “Alright,” she said, getting up onto her tired, aching feet. “Let’s go,”

“Wait, really?”

“Yes, before I change my mind,”

LaFontaine smiled a little before the horrors of what might possibly be behind the door plagued their mind. Their smile dropped and the weight of the situation dropped over them again. It was a short walk, almost too short, to the room. Suddenly the door was looming over them and anxiety flittered through the pit of their stomach. What if Perry was still out? What if Perry was dead? What if it was all their fault?

The nurse opened the door, ripping the thoughts from their mind and making their blood run cold for a second. She said something but it was all white noise. A curtain was pulled in front of the bed, blocking Perry from their view. LaFontaine’s chest felt heavy. Much too heavy to breathe. The curtain was only a few steps away but each step felt as long as a mile.

Their knees felt weak and they nearly buckled once they took the last step to peer around the thin curtain. Perry looked so weak. Her face wasn’t as pale but all of the things she was hooked up to made LaFontaine worry. The few steps to stand next to her were easy but the heavy feeling in their chest seemed to only grow heavier.

Is this what it was like for her? Staring at someone who looks so peaceful. Staring and hoping that they woke up. Having the looming possibility that they might never wake up…

A small noise broke through the beeping filling the space around their ears. They looked down.

“Mmmm..”

“Perr?” Their hand reached out to grasp her’s. She didn’t seem to notice at first. Her eyes lazily looked around the room, studying her surroundings. “Perry…” they breathed, crouching down to her level.

Her eyes slowly looked over at them, nearly a second off beat. “... LaFontaine…?” Her throat felt dry.

“Perry, are you okay?”

“I’m… I’m in the hospital…?”

“Yes. You were so pale and you fainted in Laura’s room…” LaFontaine’s gaze dropped slightly, feeling a tad guilty. “Do you remember?”

“I… I remember… Danny said something… weird…” Her mind struggled to remember, to work. It felt like there was some kind of pressure on her skull. It was weird.

“Oh, you’re awake,” A new voice joined in. LaFontaine looked over quickly, hoping that they wouldn’t be kicked out already. Perry just woke up. “You’re not suppose to be in here,” the doctor who looked like he had taken one too many overnight shifts said with a deep breath. “But you can stay. Just let me see what I can do to help,” he gave a tired smile before moving to Perry, a nurse following behind him.

LaFontaine was watching the doctor shuffle closer to the bed when they felt Perry squeeze their hand. They quickly looked back down to Perry to see her jolting and twitching violently.

“She’s seizing!” the nurse yelled, running to Perry’s side.

More nurses rushed in and shoved LaFontaine out of the door before they knew what was going on. The door shut before they could even argue.

“LaF?” Laura stood up.

“Perry!” they could feel the sting before the tears blurred their view of nurses and doctors rushing around the bed through the window in the door. Between the panicked bodies of the medical professionals, they could just barely see Perry’s feet kicking under the blanket. They put their hands on the door, as if they could touch Perry.

\--

The harsh light stung her eyes. Figures rushed all around her, seeming panicked.

“Lola? Lola, can you hear me?”

She wanted to reply, to say of course she could. Why wouldn’t she be able to hear them? As she opened her mouth to speak, her voice wouldn’t allow much of a word out. She could only nod slightly.

“You had a seizure but you’re fine now,”

“Aaaa…” Perry moved her head away from the doctor’s face a little and looked around. There were at least 2 more nurses in the room, seeming to relax a little.

“How do you feel?”

“D…. Di-Dizzz….zzzy,”

“What happened to get you in the hospital?”

“I…” Perry took a breath and cleared her throat, turning her head back to the doctor. “I don’t r-really know…”

The doctor looked up at one of the nurses. “Could you go get one of her friends?”

The nurse nodded and walked out of the room, shutting the door behind her. The doctor turned back to Perry, pulling over a chair to sit down.

“Is there anything that you remember before waking up in the hospital?”

“I… I remember I had this awful headache,” she paused and closed her eyes for a second. She felt as if she had held her breath a little too long. “I’ve recently had a lot of headaches and they’ve been getting worse and worse. Today it was really bad and I should have slept it off but instead I just took some pills and went over to my friend Laura’s room,”

“How would you describe your headache?” The doctor furrowed his brows a little.

“It was the worst headache I’ve ever experienced,”

“Hm. Then what happened?”

“It gets kind of blurry after that…” Perry muttered then looked up at the noise of the door opening. It took a few seconds for the nurse to walk into view followed by a slightly red-eyed and puffy LaFontaine.

“Perr…” They breathed lowly, thankful that she was alright now even though that didn’t change the fact that she just had a seizure.

“I was hoping you could tell me a little bit more about what happened before you called 911,”

“Well… We went to Laura’s room, she’s one of our friends, and Perry- ah…” they stopped. The doctor wouldn’t know Perry’s nickname. “ Lola went to make everyone a drink, like she normally does. I was with everyone else not even six feet away when our other friend, Danny, asks if Perry’s okay and we all looked at her. She was as pale as the wall then she just…. collapsed…”

The doctor looked a little confused. He looked back at Perry. “You said you took pills. Which ones did you take?”

“Um… Just some migraine pills” Perry reached down into her pocket and pulled out the empty bottle from her pocket.

“Why is this empty?”

“I took them all. It just.. hurt so much and it wouldn’t go away so I took as many as I could,”

The doctor turned around to look at the nurse and she just nodded before scurrying out. Perry’s brows knitted together. She didn’t understand the look the doctor had on his face nor the hurriedness of the nurse as she rushed out of the room.

“Could I talk with you? Outside?” the doctor looked at LaFontaine.

“Me?”

“Yeah, I just need to ask you some questions,”

They took a deep breath and nodded. “Okay,” They looked down at Perry and gave her hand a gentle squeeze before leaning down and kissing her forehead. “I’ll be back,”

Perry smiled a little and nodded. LaFontaine turned and walked out of the room, turning around to watch the doctor close the door.

“So… What’s up, doc?” they joked a little, trying to distract themselves of the seizure Perry just had.

“How’s Lola been feeling lately?”

LaFontaine frowned a little at the question. “Um… I actually wouldn’t know. You’d have to ask our friends. I’ve been having some… memory problems lately…”

“Okay. Please come with me. I think your answers would be helpful as well,” he said before turning and going to the group of their friends. LaFontaine followed behind then sat next to Laura as the doctor found a seat across from them. “I’m here to ask a few questions about Lola. How’s she been feeling lately?”

Everyone just looked a little puzzled and shrugged.

“She’s been fine,” Laura started. “I mean, she’s been worried about LaFontaine because-”

“My memory problems,” LaFontaine cut in.

“But other than that, it’s been pretty normal,” Laura finished.

“Has she been sleeping more often than she normally would have?”

“No… That hasn’t changed…” Danny frowned a little. She had a slight idea about what the doctor was getting at but she couldn’t be sure.

“Has she been less active or less into things that she usually enjoys?”

“Not really…” Laura shook her head.

“Well, other than the headaches,” Danny added. “That’s really the only thing that’ll stop that girl,”

“You know about the headaches?” The doctor asked.

“Yeah. She’s been having them a lot recently so I gave her some extra strength ibuprofen that I use when I’m sore after practice or meets,”

“And I gave her some migraine pills just last week,” Laura added.

“Okay, thank you for answering my questions,” the doctor smiled and stood up before making his way back to Perry’s room. He saw the nurse had come in not too long before. “Okay, Lola. Here’s something that’s a little like a chocolate smoothie. If you drink this, it’ll help take out the toxins in your stomach,”

“Okay,” Perry said, grabbing the little plastic cup and starting to drink out of the straw. “Should I drink all of this?”

“Yes, I’d like you to as you answer a few of my questions. Have you had any troubles sleeping lately?”

“Mmmm…” Perry swallowed the powdery liquid that she was sure was turning her mouth black. “No. I’ve been sleeping alright,”

“Have you been eating okay?”

“Yes. I eat three meals a day and sometimes a little something sweet in between,” Perry smiled a little.

“Well.. We think that you might have tried to overdose on those migraine pills an-” Perry cut him off by doing a little bit of a spit-take and nearly choking on the dark liquid.

She broke into a bit of a laugh. “No way, doctor. I’m not that kind of person,”

“Then why’d you take all that medicine?”

“My head… It was the worst headache ever. I was dizzy and the room was spinning and my vision was spotty. It just hurt so bad and it wouldn’t go away. You know, I think that’s all that it was,” Perry said, throwing the blanket off her body and swinging her legs off the side of the bed. “Thanks for everything, doctor, but everything will be fi-AH,” Just as Perry had stood up, her head pounded so hard that her knees buckled. It felt as if that terrible headache that happened in Laura’s room had suddenly resumed where it was. From 0 to 360 with no warning. Luckily, the doctor caught her before she hit the ground. “Oh, god! Doctor, please make it go away!!”

The doctor and nurse got her back on the bed, in the midst of her pain.

“Call radiology. We need a MRI, stat,”

“M-MRI?” Perry mustered through the pain.

“We need to make sure what’s causing that headache,”

\--

“Oooookay… Here we go,” the radiologist said as the pictures of Perry’s brain came up on the monitor. They scrolled through slowly, monitoring every frame as the doctor looked over their shoulder. “Hmmm…”

“Wait, wait…” the doctor said, putting a hand on the radiologist’s shoulder. “What’s.. that?” he said, pointing to one of the screens.

The radiologist frowned a little before looking at a few other frames then looking at the doctor with a little sigh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm always open for requests/prompts over on my [tumblr](http://the--harbor.tumblr.com)!


	13. Chapter 13

“So,” the doctor sighed. This part of the job never got any easier. “We know what caused you to faint,”

“Oh, that’s good,” Perry smiled optimistically.

“It’s also the cause of your headaches. Or at least, that’s what I believe,”

“O-okay…” She didn’t like where he was going or the tone that he was using.

The doctor sighed once more. “You have a brain hemorrhage,”

Perry’s smile fell. “So…”

“There’s… bleeding in your brain. It looks like it was a weak blood vessel that just couldn’t take it anymore and burst during a headache or a time of high blood pressure. The blood must have caused a lot of pressure on your brain so I think that’s what caused all those really bad headaches,”

“Oh…” Perry’s gaze fell as a chill ran through her body. How would LaFontaine react? “Is…” She looked back up. “Is it fatal?”

“Well… Potentially. But since you’ve lasted this long, usually it can go away on its own if we just keep your vitals stable,”

Perry sighed from relief. There was a chance. “So what are you going do?”

“Well, since there’s not much I can do without surgery, and you seem stable enough that it’s not in dire need, we’re going to check you into the hospital so we can keep an eye on your vitals,”

“Okay, thanks doctor,”

The doctor smiled a little and tried to look at comforting as he could. “I’m going to go tell your friends now then let them have a moment with you,”

“Okay,” Perry smiled, trying to keep in a positive mood even though her whole body felt completely numb.

She watched as the doctor nodded then got up and walked calmly out the door. The corners of her lips fell slowly as she thought of the doctor telling LaFontaine right now. Would they remember tomorrow? Were they crying? Were they angry? Perry just laid there, looking at the wall across from her. Everything seemed meaningless but at the same time, it was kind of overwhelming.

The door opened loudly and Perry jumped at the sudden noise. LaFontaine marched right in, straight to the side of the bed, then instantly put their arms around Perry into a tight embrace. Perry blinked a couple of times. Did she see a tear rolling down LaFontaine’s face?

“Oh, Perry,” LaFontaine muttered out in a sob.

Perry felt like crying too. She felt like crying her eyes out and holding onto LaFontaine with all her strength. But she couldn’t. She had to be strong for the both of them.

“Perry, I’m sorry,”

“Don’t be. I’ll be fine,”

LaFontaine looked up at Perry. She had a flashback of when they were kids and someone had taken and smashed all of little LaFontaine’s bug jars. LaFontaine had the same despaired look and Perry felt the same as she did back then. She couldn’t do anything about it. She couldn’t make a difference. All she could do was sit and comfort LaFontaine.

“You’ll ‘be fine’? You have a brain hemorrhage!” They sobbed. Tears spilled out of their red eyes and down their cheeks. Perry wiped one away.

“The doctor said he’d check me into the hospital and they’ll keep my vitals okay. He said that it usually can fix itself,”

“‘Usually’ is too much of a gamble, Lola!” LaFontaine shouted, suddenly angry, and Perry flinched at the harsh tone. It reminded her too much of LaFontaine’s dad.

LaFontaine felt a hand on their shoulder and they turned to look at it’s owner. Danny was standing behind them. They sighed and stood up, wiping away more tears. Harsh, dark black marks against their pale skin caught Perry’s attention. She read the writing on their arm. “Perry’s hurt” “Perry’s getting help”

“How’re you doing, Perry?” Danny asked.

Perry sighed. “I’m okay. I’ll be okay,”

Danny smiled slightly. Perry could see that Danny’s eyes were filling with tears. She didn’t want to talk about this anymore. She could see Laura, Carmilla, and Kirsch standing around her bed but she didn’t want to talk to them. She didn’t want to talk about this.

\--

“Are you staying the night?” Perry asked, looking at LaFontaine who was sitting on the chair next to her bed.

Perry had been taken to the hospital that was connected to the ER hours ago. She got her own room in the ICU. It was kind of spacious and pretty nice. Danny had brought back a few movies and one was playing at the moment but LaFontaine couldn’t concentrate on that today.

“Yes. You stayed with me when I was in my coma. I’m staying with you now,” LaFontaine nodded.

Perry chuckled a little. “Did you bring your scrapbook?”

LaFontaine nodded. “Yes. It’s over on the bedside table behind me,”

“You should go home. Or back to Silas,”

“I can’t go home… You know that…” LaFontaine nearly breathed with a frown, scrunching their eyebrows. “That’s no home to me,”

“It’s almost spring break. You should go back to Silas,” Perry ran her hands through LaFontaine’s hair.

“Not without you,” they looked deeply into her eyes. They didn’t want to go back to Silas. Not without Perry. LaFontaine didn’t want to wake up without Perry.

“You’ll be fine,” Perry kissed their nose. “I promise,”

“But what if I’m not?”

“Laura, Danny, and Carmilla are all there to help you,”

LaFontaine sighed. “But I am going to stay the night with you,”

Perry let out an amused breath. She didn’t expect anything less. “Okay,”

\--

LaFontaine jerked their head up, almost ending up dozing off. They can't fall asleep. They can't forget. So they pulled out the pen from their pocket and they found a blank space on their arm after a bit of searching. "Perry is hurt" they scribbled down in sleepy-panicked handwriting. "Perry is getting help" LaFontaine was so tired that they were falling asleep while writing on themself. They switched to writing with their other hand. Writing with your non dominate hand keeps you more awake. They've used this trick countless times before in class, thanks to a psychology class they took back in high school. "Perry is hurt" "I can't forget" "Perry things are important" The writing was crap, almost illegible but that might be because every time they blinked, their vision blurred and it was a huge fight just to open their eyes again. Without wanting to, they collapsed with their head on Perry's thigh, finally getting some sleep.

\--

The next day Danny, Kirsch, Laura, and Carmilla all came to visit. Kirsch followed a more than slightly annoyed and stressed Danny. She was much too stressed already from planning the Adonis Hunt and getting everything ready to run for Summer Society president in the next few weeks.

Perry was glad that no one was talking about her hemorrhage or the fact that spring break was a little more than a week away and by the way things were looking, she wasn’t going to be able to attend her trip to Germany.

At the end of the day they all left, including a very upset LaFontaine who really did not want to go. The goodbyes lasted far too long, especially with LaFontaine who kept running back for a hug or a kiss or even just to hold Perry’s hand. Carmilla was getting very fed up and slammed the door shut before Einstein Jr could rush back inside yet again. LaFontaine had to wave one last time through the little window before they could finally leave.

Perry saw all of them walk by the window and after the last one was out of sight, she let out a breath of air and dropped her head. The silence rang throughout the far too empty room and the full weight of the situation came crashing down on her. The first tear was a surprise but after that, they just kept falling and she couldn’t stop them. She pulled her knees to her chest and began to sob.

\--

LaFontaine hated their room at night without Perry. It seemed so empty but at the same time suffocating. They couldn't stand all the bumps and scratches of Silas at night. Not without Perry.

They laid in their bed with an arm over the spot where Perry usually would be and just stared at the wall. A few more scratches and some weird animal call that sounded not too far off and LaFontaine couldn't take it anymore. The first sob, they feared, was too loud but they couldn't hold it in.

How did Perry do it? They couldn't keep their mind off of her. How was she doing? Was she sleeping? Was she seizing again? Was she having another headache? Another sob and the flood of tears spilled onto their pillow.

Of course, they didn't want to sleep but in the end, they ended up crying themselves to sleep just like Perry did.

\--

Early the next morning, LaFontaine woke up to a knock at the door. They didn't want to answer it so they rolled over and mumbled for Perry to get it. Another knock and LaFontaine groaned and stretched out, wanting to put an arm around the body that should have been right next to them. They cracked their eyes open and looked around. No mop of ginger curls anywhere...

Another knock and LaFontaine groaned again. "Hold on..." They tried to say out loudly.

With a sigh, they rolled out of bed and stumbled for the door. Why was someone knocking so loudly on a Sunday? When they opened the door, they saw Laura all dressed with her backpack on and looking very awake. It was almost gross how awake she looked.

"Hey LaF! Glad to see your up!" She smiled.

Yep. Totally gross for this early. "What do you need?" They ran a hair through their short hair and leaned against the door frame.

"I need to make sure you're feeling alright and that you read your scrapbook," Laura beamed and pushed past the sleepy mop headed ginger in the doorway.

"You-... What?" They turned around, closing the door behind the short brunette. "Why wouldn't I be feeling alright? And what scrapbook?" They asked with a tiny yawn.

Laura had walked straight to the book and picked it up, turning around and holding it out to them. "It's Monday and you have class in a few hours but I had to make sure you read this before then,"

LaFontaine raised a brow as they crossed the room to grab the book. They could have sworn it was Sunday. "Okay, but why wouldn't I be feeling alright?" They asked again, about to put the book down for later when Laura swooped in and pushed it back into their hands.

Laura sighed at the question and her smile faded. She took one of LaFontaine's arms and showed them. Last night they had scrubbed off the ink and LaFontaine had wrote a few things down afterward. They looked at it. It said "Perry's hurt" "Perry's getting help" "Don't forget" "Perry things are important".

"What..." LaFontaine breathed in near panic. It was their handwriting but they didn't remember writing that. If it was true... Where was Perry?

"Look in your book," Laura said a little weakly, feeling the weight of the situation again.

\--

It took the help of Danny to fully convince LaFontaine that it wasn't just a joke. And it also took the help of Danny to calm LaFontaine down enough after figuring that Perry was in the hospital.

They couldn't concentrate all day. Knowing that Perry was hurt and in the hospital by herself was not a fun thought and that's all they could think of in their classes. Danny had to escort them from class to class just to make sure they wouldn't run off and go see Perry.

After what felt like the longest day of their life, Danny and Laura rode with them to go see Perry in the hospital. She was fine, of course, but that would never stop LaFontaine from worrying. Perry didn’t like all the scribbles on their arm. She knew that Danny had scrubbed off all the ink last night but they looked just as full today. Although she was thoroughly displeased with the writing, she couldn’t stay upset about it. It was nice seeing how much they cared about her.

“So, how was your day?” Perry asked after LaFontaine’s hug that nearly squeezed the life out of her.

“Okay,” they shrugged, sitting on the bed so they faced her.

Laura and Danny took seats in the chairs against the wall. There was a few feet of distance between them and the gingers. The distance was enough for them to keep their presence in the room and conversation if they wanted but it also gave the two lovebirds enough space to be by themselves.

“Okay?” Perry raised an eyebrow. “Just ‘okay’?”

LaFontaine shrugged again. “Yeah. Just okay,”

“You didn’t do anything fun in any of your classes?” Perry asked and LaFontaine thought for a little bit, their gaze falling, before shaking their head. “Oh, come on. You always have a little complaining to do about your lecture class,”

“Not today,” LaFontaine shrugged. “I just wanted to see you all day,”

Perry just tilted her head and smiled sympathetically. She loved seeing the raw emotion of worry from them but at the same time, she wanted to cry. She just wanted to break down and cry. But she couldn’t. She had to be the rock. LaFontaine needed a rock otherwise they’d be trapped in a whirlpool of confusion. But Perry needed a rock too. She couldn’t deal with all of this. Between LaFontaine not remembering and knowing how they truly felt about it and her situation… She needed a rock as well.

\--

The next morning was not as easy to deal with LaFontaine. Before Laura could even get to their room, LaFontaine had already gone in search of Perry. They had left a sticky note on their door for Laura to find.

“Laura, call me!! I can’t find Perry ANYWHERE!!!”

She sighed and pulled out her phone. After a little of scrolling through her contacts, she clicked on one and waited. Two rings then an answer.

“Hello?”

“Hey Danny. I’m gonna need some backup,”

\--

Some days were easier to get LaFontaine to listen. Others were…. very difficult. When LaFontaine was in a frenzy, it’s really hard to get them to sit down and listen. Perry was very opposed to LaFontaine writing on their skin everyday and so much. Danny started to suggest that they used sticky notes instead. It would save on scrubbing their skin clean every night which was good because it looked like their skin might just stay red from all the scrubbing. So, LaFontaine wrote all that stuff on sticky notes and put them up on Perry’s hospital walls.

That’s basically how the first few days went. On Saturday, Laura and Danny got up very early and they woke LaFontaine up, grabbed the scrapbook, and before they could ask any questions the three of them were off.

“Hey, guys. It’s not like I’m against a spontaneous adventure… but where are we going?” LaFontaine asked from the back seat, looking out the window and holding a few containers of food.

Danny had borrowed one of the Summer’s cars so they wouldn’t have to bother with the bus this time. Laura glanced at Danny after LaFontaine’s question. Danny just glanced back and nodded a little before turning and looking back at the road in front of them.

“Um…” Laura started. “We’re going to the hospital,”

“Why?” LaFontaine frowned, staring at both of them now. Why would the two need to bring them to the hospital so early and with food? “Is… Is someone hurt?” Laura and Danny shared a look again. “Guys, why are we going to the hospital?” No answer. “Really though, why are we going to the hospital? Oh my god, is someone hurt?” Laura looked to Danny, a little worried. LaFontaine didn’t like that look. “We have to go back and get Perry! If someone’s hurt, she’ll want to be there! Guys we gotta go get Perry!”

Laura and Danny stayed quiet. It wasn’t that long to the hospital but LaFontaine was still trying to get some answers out of them. They didn’t stop until they were outside Perry’s room. Danny opened up the door and walked through first then Laura. LaFontaine took a deep breath, feeling flickers of anxiety in the pit of their stomach at who it could be.

When they walked in, Carmilla was already there sitting in a chair reading a book nonchalantly. On the other side of the room, the walls were full of colorful sticky notes and in the middle was a sleepy-looking Perry in a hospital bed.

“Perry!” LaFontaine rushed to her. “Guys why is she in the hospital?” They were freaking out. No one was giving them answers.

“Honey… have you looked at the scrapbook today?” Perry asked, sitting up a bit more.

Now was not the time for that. LaFontaine had their eyes fixed on the wall behind her. They read the notes that covered the walls. On them were things like “Perry’s hurt”, “Perry things are important”, “Perry is getting help”, and “I love Lola Perry”. Who wrote these? All the notes were written in LaFontaine’s handwriting but they didn’t remember ever writing these. Was someone pretending to be them and leave notes so Perry felt better?

There were a stack of sticky notes on the table and they grabbed it. LaFontaine decided to make some themselves so Perry knows it was them, not someone else.

“I love Lola Perry forever”, “Perry is hurt”, “Perry is getting help”, “Perry is my best friend”

LaFontaine seemed proud of their work. They put up their sticky notes over the other ones that were there before. That’s when they really noticed how many were up there. There had to be at least three or four sets of each already. Who was making all these sticky notes? LaFontaine had to make more. So, they scribbled down more and more things on sticky notes before putting them up on the wall. They quickly ran out but, they hadn’t made enough yet.

“Hey guys,” LaFontaine turned to the girls behind them. “Do you h-” they got cut off. All three girls held out different colored sticky notes. Their faces looked down or away but LaFontaine didn’t notice it in their whirlwind of love notes.

The girls had witnessed this at least 4 times already. Every time they took LaFontaine to see Perry, it was the exact same thing. They’d see the notes, think that they were someone else’s, make more, run out, then ask for more. Everyone was prepared. Apart from how much it hurt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm always open for requests/prompts over on my [tumblr](http://the--harbor.tumblr.com)!


	14. Chapter 14

LaFontaine refused to leave Perry after that Saturday. The two might as well have been attached at the hip. They slept next to her at night and would keep her in their arms even hours after both of them were awake. Perry didn’t mind at all. With LaFontaine around it was easy to forget her problems. It made her forget how lonely and depressing the hospital was.

On Sunday in the afternoon, Carmilla, Danny, and Laura came back and everyone was together again. All five of the friends laughed and joked around (well, apart from Carmilla) all day. Danny even brought a little home cooked dinner for all of them to share before the three had to head out, giving the lovebirds some time alone.

As soon as the three girls left them alone, LaFontaine climbed on Perry's bed. Perry just smiled and scooted over to make room.

“How’re you feeling?” LaFontaine asked, wrapping an arm around their girlfriend.

“I’m fine, I keep telling you!” Perry said through a laugh.

“I don’t believe you. Actually tell me how you feel,”

“Why?”

“As a person of science, I would like to know how you’re feeling,”

Perry rolled her eyes and sighed. “Oookay,” she gave in. “I feel fine. My legs feel a little weak because I’ve been in bed all day but I’m fine,” Perry fibbed. She could feel pressure on her brain but she’d never tell that to LaFontaine. She would tell the doctors once LaFontaine left. LaFontaine had been worried for too long about her.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I am sure,”

Together they watched a movie, another one of Perry’s favorites. She knew this one wasn’t one of LaFontaine’s favorite and  they weren’t paying much attention. Perry looked over at LaFontaine just about half way through the movie. She didn’t want them to leave again but they had classes tomorrow. Oh, no. It was the beginning of spring break tomorrow. She should be in Germany right now but… LaFontaine felt Perry’s eyes on them and turned to look. Their eyes connected and they smiled at her.

“What?” LaFontaine mumbled through a little laugh.

“Are you gonna leave tonight?” Perry whispered.

“I don’t know. Do you want me to?” LaFontaine smiled and answered in the same low tone as Perry’s question.

She couldn’t help but glance at their lips as they spoke. “Do you want to?”

LaFontaine’s eyes flittered down to her lips too. “I don’t know… Do you want me to?”

Perry laughed a little, leaning up and connecting their lips together. Her chest swelled as she breathed in their breath, shivers scampering up and down her arms and legs. She knew that LaFontaine wouldn’t remember that she felt this way tomorrow but for now, in this moment, it was everything.

LaFontaine pulled away a little too quickly for Perry’s liking. She whined a little and pecked their lips gently.

“LaFontaine… I love you…” she whispered lowly.

“I love you too, forever and ever,” they whispered back and nuzzled their forehead against her’s.

Soon after the movie ended, they fell asleep laying next to each other in the small hospital bed. It was a little cramped but almost comfortable, nonetheless.

\--

A soft glint of sunlight hit their face from between the window blinds, stirring them from their sleep. With a low, deep breath they slowly opened their eyes against the sun. Their eyebrows furrowed once they realized they were in an unfamiliar room. Slowly, they sat up against their lazy-from-sleep, protesting muscles and looked around. A hospital room?

They stood up and looked around more. A bunch of sticky notes layered over each other covered the wall in scribbly, almost unintelligible letters. There were four chairs all huddled close together like people had been sitting there on the wall closest to the bed. The room would have been silent if it weren’t for the slow, rhythmic beeping. LaFontaine turned and saw the green line on the black monitor. It was jumping lazily and not quite as often as it probably should be.

Finally, they took a look at the person laying in the bed. She was the most beautiful girl they had ever seen. Her face was so blissful, perfectly resting. The wild ginger curls surrounded her head, a few falling down and caressing her cheeks. Something about her… Seemed all too familiar. But they had never met this girl before. LaFontaine would remember someone as beautiful as this. If she wasn’t in a hospital gown, she’d probably rock their world.

“Uh, hello?” They asked lowly, almost wishing that the girl would wake up. They wanted to see if her voice would match her beauty. Or if her eyes would match the ones that they had started to imagine.

The stranger didn’t respond. She looked tired, she must have been sleeping. They looked around for a name plate, needing to know the name of this beautiful stranger. Quickly, they noticed the clipboard at the foot of the bed.

 _“Lola Perry”_ it read at the top.

“Lola, huh?” They nearly breathed, not wanting to wake the beautiful stranger. “You seem more like a Perry,” Once they said that, something clicked in their head. “Perry… Where have I heard that before?”

They noticed their arms. They were covered in writing. “Perry is hurt” “I can’t forget” “Perry things are important” Everything seemed so close. The memory was right on the tip of their tongue. Was this beautiful woman sleeping the Perry that the writing on their arms were talking about? So… Perry’s hurt. She didn’t _look_ hurt. It must be a different Perry. But then they’d have to find their Perry. If she’s hurt then they need to help.

Suddenly, the beeping fell into a flatline and an alarm went off somewhere down the hallway. A very large, near herd, of doctors and nurses suddenly barged in and shouldered them away.

This was wrong.

They tried to resuscitate her but it didn’t work. LaFontaine could see it in the way the lead doctor’s shoulder’s slumped.

“Lola Perry, time of death… Nine-forty eight, March seventh,”

Wrong. That… That date was wrong. It was September... right?

They didn’t know this stranger and this seemed like a bad time to ask questions or even be in the room, so they left. It wasn’t until they had left the hospital that sobs and tears knocked them off guard. They were crying like their world was ending. Why did it have to be so sad on such a beautiful September, well, March day? They didn’t understand why they were crying so hard and they didn’t understand why the words on their arms hurt worse than their soul being shattered into a million pieces.

\--

The next day, Danny dropped off a box full of sticky notes from the hospital. They didn’t understand but sobs overtook their body. They didn’t understand why Danny placed a hand on their back and told them to “let it all out”. They didn’t understand this sadness. They didn’t understand why they couldn’t find Perry.

\--

“Hey Laura, have you seen Perry anywhere?” LaFontaine asked, poking their head into the room from the open door. “I can’t seem to find her,”

Laura turned around, a look of sadness washed over her. “Perry’s gone,”

“Well, where’d she go?” LaFontaine asked with a slight smile on their face.

“No, I mean…” She sighed. “She’s dead,” Laura’s voice cracked.

Their smile fell. “Laura… Stop joking…Death isn’t something to joke-”

“I’m not. She died… She died three weeks ago,” Laura couldn’t stop the tears. This conversation never got any better.

“You’re lying…” LaFontaine’s voice broke. They didn’t want to cry, but they were about to.

“Here,” Laura held out an envelope, no longer looking at LaFontaine. It was too hard.

They stepped into the room and took the letter anxiously. On the outside in neat, loopy handwriting it was addressed “LaFontaine”. They were going to sit down on the bed but Laura stopped them.

“Go back to your room to read that. That’s Perry’s last letter to you,” she sniffled, staring forward at her computer.

LaFontaine glanced down at the envelope that they held like it was made of glass and it would shatter if they even breathed wrong. They made it back to their shared room slowly, the envelope feeling like a million pounds. Once they got inside, they sat down on the bed that now only reminded them of Perry. They struggled to open the envelope as their hands began to shake.

Once the seal was open, they took out a five polaroid photos. The first one was of the back of their head but someone was holding their hand and the head of a rose was in the corner of the frame. Maybe they were walking? In the next one, they instantly recognized Perry. She was wearing her favorite dress. They smiled distantly and touched the picture gently. Just looking at the picture made them want to cry. Was Laura telling the truth? Was Perry really gone? The third one was of them looking very dapper, holding a very, very beautiful necklace out. When did this happen? The next was a slightly blurry picture the sign of that fancy restaurant she had been talking about visiting and they were holding her hand, leading her inside. The last one was of the two of them kissing on what looked to be a roof. At the bottom of the picture there was very neat, pretty handwriting that they knew to be Perry’s. _“Me and my favorite person on my favorite night <3 January 2015”_

LaFontaine smiled and reached back into the envelope and pulled out a letter. As they read it, they could practically hear Perry’s voice.

_“LaFontaine,_

_I guess if you’re reading this, then I didn’t make it and you probably don’t know where I am. On September 26th, 2014 you were in a car accident and fell into a coma. On October 4th, 2014 you woke up. On November 2nd, 2014 you were diagnosed with anterograde amnesia. And on February 28th, 2015 I had a brain hemorrhage._

_Don’t worry about me, I’ll be okay and so will you. You won’t remember today or tomorrow and you seem to be missing your yesterdays._

_Every morning I woke you up with a kiss and I gave you one every night before I fell asleep. I’ve been meaning to tell you since we moved into Silas that I love you. I love you down to the last cell that makes up who you are. You’ve told me you loved me and I remember every one of them. All 96 of them. I remember each time you’ve kissed me. 128 times._

_I just want you to know that even though you won’t remember, Laura, Danny, and Carmilla will help you through anything. Always keep them close, I’m counting on them to watch over you for me._

_I know you’ll do something amazing one day and I’m sad I won’t be around to see it. Don’t let my death or your amnesia hinder you from being amazing._

_Go do your thing and be hardcore, weirdo._

_I love you._

_-Perry_

_P.S Don’t cry over me, okay? No crying.”_

LaFontaine was in tears, shaking. She was really gone. Perry said no crying but they couldn’t hold back the sobs that forced themselves out. It took nearly a full two hours for them to calm down enough to get a word out.

\--

They didn’t go to classes at all for a month. All they did was in the morning, wonder where Perry was, find the scrapbook and the envelope, then lay down and lock themself in their room for the rest of the day. Laura and Danny were getting worried. LaFontaine needed to pass their classes but all LaFontaine cared about now was going through the pictures on their phone and getting angry that they couldn’t remember any of them.

As they were scrolling, they found some that they hadn’t made it to yet. Instantly, they recognized Perry. The first one was Perry outside of her last class holding a rose and blushing a little. The next was Perry wearing her favorite dress and a very, very beautiful necklace that they recognized from the polaroids in Perry’s envelope. The third was of LaFontaine and Perry, LaFontaine looking very dapper and Perry looking absolutely stunning. LaFontaine even felt their cheeks heat up by looking at the picture. The next was Perry sitting and studying a menu very closely at what looked like a very fancy restaurant. The last was angled perfectly to catch Perry’s silhouette behind the setting sun on top of, what looked like, the library. LaFontaine felt tears roll down their cheeks. Perry was really gone…

\--

Their eyes opened slowly as if they had been rusted shut. As they opened their eyes, they frowned slightly at the unfamiliar room they were almost positive they didn’t fall asleep in last night. With a jolt, LaFontaine sat up and glanced around the room. No one was there.

The room looked kinda messy, like it had been lived in. Some of their stuff was around and decorated the room. All over the far wall were sticky notes, all the same color of neon blue. Some of the colors looked faded, as if they had been there for a long time. LaFontaine’s eyes caught a hold of a neon yellow sticky note amongst the sea of blue. Curiosity filled them enough to make them slump out of bed and shuffle to see what it said.

_“Here’s a book of people you know and noteworthy events”_

The letters were loopy, pretty, but overall neat. Something hit them hard inside their chest looking a the letters but they didn’t understand. It felt as though… They’d seen it somewhere before. LaFontaine looked down below the sticky note and saw a scrapbook. They opened it slowly and flipped through it absentmindedly. At the end was Perry’s last letter. LaFontaine sobbed. Perry was gone. They grabbed the scrapbook and shuffled back to the bed, holding it close to their chest.

As they laid back down on the bed, three frames hanging on the wall next to their bed caught their attention. They sat up and looked at them. Inside the three frames were degrees. Bachelor’s, Master’s, and a Doctorate. All in biology. All addressed to them. They had a doctorate? LaFontaine opened up the scrapbook again and looked at Perry’s letter. They reread the last section.

_“I know you’ll do something amazing one day and I’m sad I won’t be around to see it. Don’t let my death or your amnesia hinder you from being amazing.”_

She was right. LaFontaine didn’t need to sit here and mope all day. They turned at looked at the clock. It was 8 am. They had all day to do something meaningful like Perry would have wanted.

LaFontaine went to the closet and dressed themself in something dapper. They felt good and ready for the day, they had to dress like it. They grabbed the polaroid out of the envelope with Perry and them sharing a kiss on the roof of the library and put it gingerly into their pocket.

They opened their bedroom door and wandered out into the hallway. As soon as they opened the door, the smell of pancakes filled the air. Someone else was in the house with them… The house was unfamiliar to them but they walked around, looking into every room they passed. Finally, they found the kitchen and when they looked in a very tall ginger was over the stove.

“LaFontaine,” someone said behind them. They jumped and turned around, recognizing Laura after a second. “Good morning,”

“Oh, hi,” they smiled. “Um- I mean- good morning,”

“You live with us now,” Laura smiled. “Come sit down at the table with me,” Laura said as she walked past them and through the kitchen. “Good morning,” she greeted the tall ginger by the stove.

“Good morning,” she smiled back before turning to look at LaFontaine. Laura was all dressed up like a little journalist. She must have work today. “Ready for pancakes?”

LaFontaine smiled. “Sure,” they followed Laura to the kitchen table and the food wasn’t too far behind.

“Oh, I didn’t grab the milk. Does anyone want milk? Lemme go grab it real quick-” She turned to go back to the kitchen when Laura stopped her.

“Honestly, Danny. Stop fussing, everything’s fine,”

Danny paused for a few seconds before relaxing and smiling. She tucked a few strands of hair behind her ear before sitting back down. Her hair was shorter than what LaFontaine remembered.

"Let's eat, then!" Laura grinned, instantly reaching for the pancakes.

The three began eating their breakfast. It was delicious but it could never compare to Perry's cooking...

"LaF? You okay?" Laura touched their forearm gently.

"Hm?" LaFontaine turned to Laura, getting pulled from thought. They swallowed a small mouthful of eggs and nodded. "Yeah, I'm good,"

"Okay," Laura smiled before turning back to devour her pancakes again.

"So where's... Um... Carmilla?" LaFontaine asked, forgetting her name for a second.

Danny's expression visibly fell.

"She works night shifts so she doesn't come back until a little later," Laura smiled through her half-chewed pancakes.

"She should just not come back at all," Danny muttered into her glass of orange juice before taking a sip.

"What was that?" Laura turned to Danny.

"Oh, nothing," Danny brushed it off with a fake smile and cheerful tone.

LaFontaine felt the weird atmosphere that came over the table due to the topic so they dropped it. "So... do you work today, Laura?"

"Mmhmm," said hummed through more pancakes before looking over to the clock on the wall. She gulped down the still only half-chewed pancakes. "I'm gonna be late if I don't leave now!"

"Oh," Danny put down her fork and glanced at the clock. "I made you both a lunch!" She got up and trotted into the kitchen. She came back a few moments later with two lunch boxes. One was covered with monocles and mustaches and the other was covered with bow ties. "Here you go!" Danny handed each of them a box.

LaFontaine took theirs apprehensively, just about to ask why but Laura jumped in.

"I'll drive you and pick you up after you're done," she smiled, getting up and smoothing out her skirt.

"Laura Hollis, finish your fruit," Danny said sternly with her arms crossed.

The little journalist gave Danny a sheepish look before shoving all the fruit into her mouth then running off for her shoes. LaFontaine followed, putting on their's and waiting for the little scrambling girl to fix her heels.

"Thanks for breakfast, we'll be back later!" Laura yelled into the house still with a bunch of fruit in her mouth.

"Yeah, thanks!" LaFontaine yelled a bit quieter than Laura before opening the door for her to scramble out with one heel still not completely on.

They followed Laura slowly, just listening to her hurried little clicks on the pavement. They reached into their pocket and pulled out the polaroid of Perry kissing them back all those years ago. A smile spread across their face before they put the picture back in their pocket.

LaFontaine went to the passenger side of the car. Laura was still scrambling around, now ruffling through her purse.

"Here, silly," Danny said walking towards her with keys in her hand. "You forgot these again,"

"Oh, thank goodness," Laura grinned with a sigh of relief and took them from Danny.

Danny pulled her in for a hug, her head resting perfectly on top of the girl's head. "Have a good day," she said then kissed the girls head gently. LaFontaine felt their eyebrow raise and Danny suddenly noticed the biologist. She quickly let go of Laura with a small blush coloring her cheeks. She cleared her throat, looking away slightly. "Have a good day, LaF,"

"You too," they nodded.

Laura climbed into the car and LaFontaine did too. Once the doors closed they turned to her.

"So you and Danny..."

"Um, that’s not important right now," She started the car, avoiding the question.

Laura pulled out of the driveway and waved to Danny on the porch before driving off.

"So, where are we going?" LaFontaine asked, looking out the window as the suburbs turned into a busy city.

"Work. I'm dropping you off then I'll pick you back up at 6, okay?"

"What? Where are you going?" LaFontaine looked at the little brunette.

"Work. I have work and you have work,"

"Oh... What do I do?"

"You're a professor at the university around here,"

"Silas?"

Laura chuckled. "No, not Silas. We decided that Silas was a... bad reminder of events... So we moved,"

"Oh... I see..."

"You're a little famous too. You've made a few breakthroughs in biology and especially because of your amnesia, it makes for a good story,"

"Really...?"

"Yup! And it all started with a little story by yours truly,"

LaFontaine laughed a little. "Thanks, L,"

The two sat in silence for a while before Laura broke the silence. "What're you thinking?"

"Everything's... So different... I never would have imagined that I'd be teaching at a university.." The buildings outside changed to student housing. They must have reached the campus.

"I feel the same way sometimes,” Laura smiled. “Well, not that I teach at a university, but that we've all gotten to this point in our lives,"

The car pulled to a stop outside of a new looking building compared to the rest of the surrounding buildings. "This is where I drop you off. Someone's inside waiting for you,"

"Okay, thank you," LaFontaine smiled before clutching into their lunch box a little harder and getting out of the car.

Laura waved before speeding away. LaFontaine looked around at all the buildings and students walking and they felt like a lost child.

"Good morning, Dr. LaFontaine!" A few girls grinned as they walked past.

"Uh, g-good morning," they nodded back.

With a deep breath, they started walking toward the building. All the students they passed greeted them. It made them feel a little bad that they didn't know any of the students names. As LaFontaine kept walking, the letters on the side of the building came into view.

_"Lola Perry Science Building"_

A little twinge of pain hit their heart seeing her name, their pace falling a beat behind, but it also made them smile. They could do this. As they opened the heavy doors, a bunch of displays came into view. There were a bunch of posters and students around everywhere.

"Professor," someone said, gaining their attention. A round man with a bushy, gray mustache was smiling largely at them. "Good morning, I hope you made it here okay,"

"Yes, I did," LaFontaine smiled kindly but gripped their lunch box a little tighter. It felt weird being in a place where everyone knew them.

"I'm the Dean of the Science departments here. Let me take you to your classroom," he grinned, only the slightest bit of his teeth shone through his bushy mustache. He seemed like a very joyful guy. He turned around and lead them through the building. Most people they passed greeted them both.

"How long have I been working here?" LaFontaine asked curiously.

"Hm. I'd say just about 4 years!"

"4 years..."

"Umm... Excuse me..." A little voice came from behind them.

LaFontaine turned around to see a young looking boy who was dressed very nicely but his face was almost completely red and he looked like he was shaking. "Yes..?"

"D-Doctor..." His voice cracked so he cleared his throat. "Doctor LaFontaine... Could you... C-Could you read my thesis?" He asked quietly, shakingly holding out a small stack of papers.

"Um, sure," they smiled, taking the papers gently.

"Th-thank you! I p-put my email on the top... Y-you c-c-c-c..."

"I'll email you when I'm done," LaFontaine finished for him with a kind smile.

"Th-thank you so much!" He smiled big before rushing off.

"How kind of you," the dean smiled. "Anyway, let's not be late for your class now!" He said before beginning to walk again. LaFontaine followed for a while before he finally stopped outside of a room. "Here you are! You schedule should be on your desk. Have a good day!" He smiled before walking away.

LaFontaine took a deep breath before looking in. It was a lecture hall that was packed full. Kids were even sitting in the ground, all looking excited to be there.

LaFontaine touched their pocket gently where the polaroid of Perry was. "If only you could see this..." The whispered before walking in.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm always open for requests/prompts over on my [tumblr](http://the--harbor.tumblr.com)!

**Author's Note:**

> I'm always open for requests/prompts over on my [tumblr](http://the--harbor.tumblr.com)!


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